Tim:
Dad started driving and almost rear ended a car after 1km. Andy was grumpy when we left but promptly got over it when he was sat between Ben and Tim who challenged him on the difficulty of maintaining the facial expression he was sporting.
Km 50: Matt makes an attempt to sing "Barbie Girl" (who did he learn that from?) with not much success with the lyrics or the tune. After 10 minutes of "It's a Barbie girl, it's a Barbie girl" most of us were looking fwd to the next song.Ben:
Just got through Santiago without a problem. Matt's slapping Pete on the back and singing “a kid’ll eat ivy too” better than Barbie girl. Pete now wants a seat change, but Tim and I won’t oblige, and grumps is confined to the back seat until an hour after lunch. “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?” Now it’s “duba do duba dup” from Tarzan. With little ‘whoops’ in between. Sounds like a video game soundtrack.
Andy’s reading over my shoulder with all critical powers turned on. Pete's got his finger in his mouth and is leaning as far away from Matt as he can and looking out the front. Mum’s knitting something. Dad’s driving. Tim’s not doing anything.
“Matt's getting a lot of dirty looks and it should be out in the open” says grandpa Tim in a voice no one can hear. “I don’t really get excited by the middle seats” says Tim. Pete tries to convince people that he’s “tired and wants to go to sleep”, however the real reason is suspected to be that he would prefer his front seat points at some later stage, plus is sick of Matt, and also passing dirty yogurt spoons and yogurt containers forward to Mum, who puts them somewhere.
Some alarm just went off, which means that Matt gets to choose a CD. He’s chosen Narnia, all 31 hours of it.
Just had a series of ‘humpies’ on the road. Dad got excited by it, and said ‘huumpie!’ on each one, and tried to get the car to bounce higher by pulling up on the steering wheel
Dodged some billie goats on the road. Weather is darkish and grey. Road is semi dry.
Andy just got another half an hour in the back seat cos dad asked about the toolbox, and I said “I don’t know”. He now has his death mask on. We now enter a discussion on the basic toolbox and its components. I propose 2 adjustable spanners, vice grips, two screweys. Dad wants WD40 for Mum’s seat. Andy’s being encouraged by Tim who says that he should get the back seat moulded to his ashole, and Mum says “Don’t give up hope mate.”
"What are you writing Ben?!" says Tim. “His feelings” says Andy. Haha.
Listened to Narnia for about 20 minutes, and then Mum decided that a little town was interesting enough to turn it off. She pressed stop, so we have to start it from the start. T’is going to be a long 31 hours, as it will have to be uninterrupted if Mum can’t find the pause button.
And so we drove on, only 9900km to go...
3 comments:
Speaking of adventures. I remember the Briggs' and Mulherins' camping and walking in the Victorian Alps during the first return home from Argentina - i think. We found a delightfully protected clearing amongst snow gums to pitch our tents for a couple of days. During the first night the classic alpine weather set in - wind, rain, mist - magic. Colin , the boys and I went to bed in our capming tent (don't read hiking tent there), the Mulherins crawled into their hiking tents which they had just purchased. During the night, the snug (and smug) Briggs were woken by frantic mutterings. We peered through the zipper of our tent and there were the Mulherins dripping wet (now I admit that is said with some exaggeration and smugness). Ben and Tim peering out the zipper of there somewhat sodden tent. After shuffling sleeping bags peole were reallotted to other tents - needless to say we were all pretty shattered the next day - however I remember Ben still being the first to the hut, first to the summit...so full of energy, enthusiasm and drive. Jill
haha! so good to hear Ben's voice again - even if it is a mental translation. i laughed out loud while reading this (and then almost cried). it reminded me that it was hard to get away with anything when ben was around. He was super-observant (at the best and worst of times).
i remember walking through Salta with Ben and Tim and Betti Amey. We walked past some young hippy bloke who was taking off his jumper (not usually a memorable event), but as he stretched his arms up, his pants gravitated down somewhat. He was facing me at the time, so my view was, shall we say... an awkward one? i looked away quickly (it seemed fitting-unlike hippy's pants) wondering whether to laugh and have to explain or keep my tongue (internal dilemma common to Flyck), but i caught Ben's eye as i looked up, and he grinned at me and it was fixed. Someone else noticed, and thought it was funny. Ben was observant.
haha! so good to hear Ben's voice again - even if it is a mental translation. i laughed out loud while reading this (and then almost cried). it reminded me that it was hard to get away with anything when ben was around. He was super-observant (at the best and worst of times).
i remember walking through Salta with Ben and Tim and Betti Amey. We walked past some young hippy bloke who was taking off his jumper (not usually a memorable event), but as he stretched his arms up, his pants gravitated down somewhat. He was facing me at the time, so my view was, shall we say... an awkward one? i looked away quickly (it seemed fitting-unlike hippy's pants) wondering whether to laugh and have to explain or keep my tongue (internal dilemma common to Flyck), but i caught Ben's eye as i looked up, and he grinned at me and it was fixed. Someone else noticed, and thought it was funny. Ben was observant.
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