There is No Place Like Home
I was dreading the New Year's Eve party at Longreach. When we first stepped into the tavern where our friend was due to perform we were given appraising looks. It was a little bit like entering a nudist camp fully clothed. You knew that you had every right to be there but you got the uncomfortable feeling that you looked distinctly different to everyone else and that you were about as welcome as a slug in a salad.
Our accommodation had all the charm and ambience of a construction site. Every floorboard felt more fragile than the last and the carpets were vintage stripey-style with splashes of accumulated spills - some which smelt fairly fresh. We later found out that the building was scheduled for demolition. What a surprise. The bathroom was less horrifying than the last we had dealt with. After our long journey I had only one request: a cup of comforting tea. I was shown the tea table near the stairs. I gingerly reached inside the open plastic bucket and pulled out a teabag. It was attached to many of the other teabags in a convoluted tangle of strings and bags. Some bags were spilling tea leaves and others had suspicious brown stains on them. After extracting a reasonable-looking specimen I dropped it into a plastic cup which I had retrieved from my picnic bag to avoid using the mugs on the table.
Apprehensively, I filled the cup with hot water from the plastic urn which was encrusted with I-don't-ever-want-to-know-what. The Bushells teabag turned the water a colour that looked like tea and I felt my hopes revived. I opened the fridge with trepidation. There was a solitary item in the middle - a mug half-filled with milk. I brought the mug up to my nose. It smelt like milk, it looked like milk...I smelt it again. And again. After smelling it a few more times I concluded it was long-life milk and began to pour it into my cup. Being a clear plastic sort I could watch in horror as the milk plunged to the bottom of the cup - and stayed there. There was congealed milk on the sides of the mug that I had poured it from and I looked at the sorry mix of stale tea atop the milk.
After discarding the tea I retired to my room. There was a wardrobe with a small square mirror within a square cavity. Unfortunately, due to the position of it so close to the door and at torso-height I had to bend down and forward to look into it. This had the effect of blocking any available light and so I couldn't see anything at all. After doing my makeup I again practised my I'm-having-a-great-time-smile. After three days of it the smile was turning into a grimace and I almost couldn't bear the thought of being in a room full of people who wouldn't make eye contact with us while listening to country music.
Only one more night I told myself. I looked longingly at my train ticket for the next morning. I was like a Dorothy wailing, "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" But there was a bit more heel clicking to do before I could go anywhere...
Our accommodation had all the charm and ambience of a construction site. Every floorboard felt more fragile than the last and the carpets were vintage stripey-style with splashes of accumulated spills - some which smelt fairly fresh. We later found out that the building was scheduled for demolition. What a surprise. The bathroom was less horrifying than the last we had dealt with. After our long journey I had only one request: a cup of comforting tea. I was shown the tea table near the stairs. I gingerly reached inside the open plastic bucket and pulled out a teabag. It was attached to many of the other teabags in a convoluted tangle of strings and bags. Some bags were spilling tea leaves and others had suspicious brown stains on them. After extracting a reasonable-looking specimen I dropped it into a plastic cup which I had retrieved from my picnic bag to avoid using the mugs on the table.
Apprehensively, I filled the cup with hot water from the plastic urn which was encrusted with I-don't-ever-want-to-know-what. The Bushells teabag turned the water a colour that looked like tea and I felt my hopes revived. I opened the fridge with trepidation. There was a solitary item in the middle - a mug half-filled with milk. I brought the mug up to my nose. It smelt like milk, it looked like milk...I smelt it again. And again. After smelling it a few more times I concluded it was long-life milk and began to pour it into my cup. Being a clear plastic sort I could watch in horror as the milk plunged to the bottom of the cup - and stayed there. There was congealed milk on the sides of the mug that I had poured it from and I looked at the sorry mix of stale tea atop the milk.
After discarding the tea I retired to my room. There was a wardrobe with a small square mirror within a square cavity. Unfortunately, due to the position of it so close to the door and at torso-height I had to bend down and forward to look into it. This had the effect of blocking any available light and so I couldn't see anything at all. After doing my makeup I again practised my I'm-having-a-great-time-smile. After three days of it the smile was turning into a grimace and I almost couldn't bear the thought of being in a room full of people who wouldn't make eye contact with us while listening to country music.
Only one more night I told myself. I looked longingly at my train ticket for the next morning. I was like a Dorothy wailing, "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" But there was a bit more heel clicking to do before I could go anywhere...
Your writing? As good as writing gets.
David ...
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Love the cat, it won me.
Be it ever so humble there' s no place like home, set to music, of course.
Hope you live to write another blog.
katyzzz