How to not have a good day at the Fringe
Mar. 8th, 2009 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angharad_gam1. Decide the weather is lovely, and my cold is much better and the Fringe Family show would be a great way to get out of the house and spend some time with the kids.
2. Think the parking in town will be appalling so decide to take the bus. Erin and Liam love taking the bus.
3. Discover that Ashwyn does not like taking the bus. Discover that people do not like sitting near you on the bus when you have a screaming snotty baby.
4. Get screaming snotty baby off the bus. When baby makes bid for freedom, stuff him into stroller, eliciting more screaming. Walk down Grenfell St with screaming snotty baby to East Parklands.
5. Show older kids the delights of the Fringe. Get frustrated when kids refuse to participate in anything. Liam wants to go home. Baby still screaming. And snotty.
6. Release baby from dreadful imprisonment of stroller. Baby makes second bid for freedom - heads for creek. Thank minor deities for drought and dryness of creek.
7. Chase baby over to Bungie Trampoline thing, which flings kids high into the air on elastic strings. Think this will be a distraction. Baby likes this (he is a monkey baby). Baby wants to go on.
8. Drag baby physically away from trying to climb onto Bungie Trampoline thing, and step into a hole. Fall on the ground (still clutching baby) thinking 'ow ow ow my ankle'.
9. Sit rather stupidly on the ground hanging on to wriggling baby and thinking 'I can't get up'.
So, yes. I went to the Fringe, I fell in a hole and sprained my ankle rather badly (I've done it twice before - once in the middle of the Flinders where I had to walk two days on it to get out - and this hurt a lot more than those two). When the St Johns guy asked me how much it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10 (I didn't know they really did that) I said 'five' but wondered if I should mention I've had three babies with no pain relief - I wonder if they make adjustments for that. Most foolishly of all, I did it after I had wandered off from Andy so he had no idea where I'd gone (and being on the ground he couldn't see me), and I had no choice but to hang on to the wriggling baby, because if he ran off then he really would be lost). I was worried they would cart me off for X-rays or something, and Andy would have no idea what had happened. A very nice man loaned me his phone to ring Andy, but he didn't answer (it was too noisy, he told me later, he didn't hear it).
A big THANK YOU out into the internet for all those lovely people who thought that a woman sitting on the ground holding a wriggly baby was actually some of their business, especially those people who tried to distract the baby while I got bandaged up. Extra especially to the lady who let Ashwyn fiddle with her I-phone (a device which represents most of Ashwyn's great passions rolled into one) - I hope he has not set to talk to you in Mongolian or something.
My ankle (I have taken off the bandage to have a shower) looks like a mottled purple tennis ball has been stuck on the side. Poor old Andy, who was just starting to think I was over being ill, is stuck with an invalid Claire once again. And we didn't have much fun at the Fringe (Ashwyn repeated his performance on the way home btw).
So if you were at the Fringe today, and saw a small woman in a blue dress sitting on the grass with the passers-by looking up her skirt while an ambulance officer bandaged her ankle, and if she was also holding on to a wriggly baby, then it was probably me.
In slightly better news, Cyclone Hamish has passed by Mackay, where my brother and his wife live (probably a good thing, as he was apparently settling in to batten down the hatches, and I don't think there's much battening you can do against 295km/hr winds, which Hamish was pushing in the vicinity of Mackay). It is, however, now expected to cross the coast near Hervey Bay, which is not very far from where my parents live (well actually it's about 150km, but nevertheless they will be in for some rough weather - they usually get spin-off weather even from cyclones that stay in the tropics, so by rough I mean pretty rough really). It is downgrading though, and moving south very slowly (still around Rockhampton when I talked to Mum and Dad around 7pm). Fingers crossed. Last time they had a cyclone this far south was the sixties, and the population of the area has increased rather sharply since then. Mum said they have evacuated 10,000 people from Fraser Island and the Bay area. I can see why. I wouldn't feel particularly secure on Fraser (which is basically a big sand dune in the middle of the ocean) during a cyclone. On the other hand, Fraser Island is World Heritage listed, and one of those strange and unique features that make Australia such a bizarre and interesting place. It would be quite horrifying if it was washed away.
The lessons for today then - do not go to the Fringe with a two-year old; watch out for potholes; don't live in Northern Queensland. Or just any part of Queensland really :-).
2. Think the parking in town will be appalling so decide to take the bus. Erin and Liam love taking the bus.
3. Discover that Ashwyn does not like taking the bus. Discover that people do not like sitting near you on the bus when you have a screaming snotty baby.
4. Get screaming snotty baby off the bus. When baby makes bid for freedom, stuff him into stroller, eliciting more screaming. Walk down Grenfell St with screaming snotty baby to East Parklands.
5. Show older kids the delights of the Fringe. Get frustrated when kids refuse to participate in anything. Liam wants to go home. Baby still screaming. And snotty.
6. Release baby from dreadful imprisonment of stroller. Baby makes second bid for freedom - heads for creek. Thank minor deities for drought and dryness of creek.
7. Chase baby over to Bungie Trampoline thing, which flings kids high into the air on elastic strings. Think this will be a distraction. Baby likes this (he is a monkey baby). Baby wants to go on.
8. Drag baby physically away from trying to climb onto Bungie Trampoline thing, and step into a hole. Fall on the ground (still clutching baby) thinking 'ow ow ow my ankle'.
9. Sit rather stupidly on the ground hanging on to wriggling baby and thinking 'I can't get up'.
So, yes. I went to the Fringe, I fell in a hole and sprained my ankle rather badly (I've done it twice before - once in the middle of the Flinders where I had to walk two days on it to get out - and this hurt a lot more than those two). When the St Johns guy asked me how much it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10 (I didn't know they really did that) I said 'five' but wondered if I should mention I've had three babies with no pain relief - I wonder if they make adjustments for that. Most foolishly of all, I did it after I had wandered off from Andy so he had no idea where I'd gone (and being on the ground he couldn't see me), and I had no choice but to hang on to the wriggling baby, because if he ran off then he really would be lost). I was worried they would cart me off for X-rays or something, and Andy would have no idea what had happened. A very nice man loaned me his phone to ring Andy, but he didn't answer (it was too noisy, he told me later, he didn't hear it).
A big THANK YOU out into the internet for all those lovely people who thought that a woman sitting on the ground holding a wriggly baby was actually some of their business, especially those people who tried to distract the baby while I got bandaged up. Extra especially to the lady who let Ashwyn fiddle with her I-phone (a device which represents most of Ashwyn's great passions rolled into one) - I hope he has not set to talk to you in Mongolian or something.
My ankle (I have taken off the bandage to have a shower) looks like a mottled purple tennis ball has been stuck on the side. Poor old Andy, who was just starting to think I was over being ill, is stuck with an invalid Claire once again. And we didn't have much fun at the Fringe (Ashwyn repeated his performance on the way home btw).
So if you were at the Fringe today, and saw a small woman in a blue dress sitting on the grass with the passers-by looking up her skirt while an ambulance officer bandaged her ankle, and if she was also holding on to a wriggly baby, then it was probably me.
In slightly better news, Cyclone Hamish has passed by Mackay, where my brother and his wife live (probably a good thing, as he was apparently settling in to batten down the hatches, and I don't think there's much battening you can do against 295km/hr winds, which Hamish was pushing in the vicinity of Mackay). It is, however, now expected to cross the coast near Hervey Bay, which is not very far from where my parents live (well actually it's about 150km, but nevertheless they will be in for some rough weather - they usually get spin-off weather even from cyclones that stay in the tropics, so by rough I mean pretty rough really). It is downgrading though, and moving south very slowly (still around Rockhampton when I talked to Mum and Dad around 7pm). Fingers crossed. Last time they had a cyclone this far south was the sixties, and the population of the area has increased rather sharply since then. Mum said they have evacuated 10,000 people from Fraser Island and the Bay area. I can see why. I wouldn't feel particularly secure on Fraser (which is basically a big sand dune in the middle of the ocean) during a cyclone. On the other hand, Fraser Island is World Heritage listed, and one of those strange and unique features that make Australia such a bizarre and interesting place. It would be quite horrifying if it was washed away.
The lessons for today then - do not go to the Fringe with a two-year old; watch out for potholes; don't live in Northern Queensland. Or just any part of Queensland really :-).
