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DAY 110: Sketching burlesque ladies

19 Dec

THIS lunchtime at the Order of Melbourne, cocktails are being served while the aptly named Dolores Daiquiri takes to the stage in scarlet corset with feather plumage fans and strikes a cheesecake pose. Around 20 or so men and women start scribbling in sketchpads, some with their own watercolours and pastels. This is serious stuff.

Natalie and I scratch enthusiastically on scraps of paper, and fortunately no one descends upon us and bellows, “Ha! Imposters!”

As a glamorous DJ spins ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ and ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’, we’re urged to eat biscuits and candy canes, until there are crumbs all over my depiction of Dolores’ perfect ski-jump nose.

Keeper? Yes.

DAY 105: Failing my driving test over the most minor of details

14 Dec

THIS entry was supposed to have more of a triumphant tone, but due to unforseen circumstances there’s been a change to the scheduled programming.

I can’t quite believe I’ve failed when I’ve had experience running a car off the road, hitting a possum and driving a banger with wonky wheels. You’d think that covers all bases, but no – I’m failed for turning right when I’m in the middle lane, which, quite frankly, I’ve seen loads of people do. It’s a bit gutting, because – no offence – I really wasn’t going to be one of those softcocks who didn’t pass first time.

Keeper? One more time. And ask to see my parallel parking.

DAY 101: Getting breathalysed

10 Dec

Who wouldn't chuckle at a cop wearing this shirt?

DID a U-ey especially for this, and aced it. And, after a hairy moment, so did the driving instructor.

Keeper? Will no doubt ace it again.

DAY 87: Running my driving instructor’s car off the road

26 Nov

I’VE been wondering what the hell I’m going to do for today’s task, so thank god this happens.

It’s been raining so long and so hard it feels like the world’s ending, and so my driving lesson involves snorkelling through brand new rivers that have formed over roads around Guildford and Daylesford. One bloke’s looking miserably at the top half of his tractor floating in a field on our way through, and on the way back it’s gone altogether.

It’s around this point I merely tickle the crumbly gutter with one wheel when suddenly we’re locked into it at speed, like a bicycle tyre in a tram track, before I correct the manoeuvre by steering us into incoming traffic. I correct again and we hurtle off 100m into the bush.

“Brake! Brake!” the instructor screams, even though he’s got a brake as well. “I AM,” I snap, pointing at my foot. And it’s true – it’s on the brake, we’re just having a bit of a prolonged skid.

“What would you have to do to get them to stop, roll the bloody car?” he tuts of the other tittering drivers after checking he still has all his wheels.

We giggle for the next 10 kays… but seriously, I’m well impressed by my reaction skills. I reckon if the tester saw that he’d pass me immediately.

Keeper? I wanted to do it again straight away.

The tractor. I didn't hit it.

DAY 84: Passing my hazard test, despite Richard Marx’s best efforts

23 Nov

It's like playing Big Game Hunter, driving out where I live.

THE question is, can I pull off my hazard test (stage one of your driving test) while I’ve got ‘Hazard’ by Richard Marx droning relentlessly between my ears?

>click the mouse when you would slow down<

“I swearrrr I left her by the river…”

>click the mouse when you would turn right<

“...All of my rescues are go-o-o-o-o-o-one”

Fortunately, I pass… although at 61%, I’d watch my brake lights vigilantly if I were you.

Swerving haphazardly off topic, I’ve noticed my Vic Roads driving manual reads like a Buddhist tract. If you replace ‘drive’ with ‘act’, and ‘drivers’ with ‘people’, you’ve got a Zen manual for living:

* Always drive co-operatively, even when others are not.

* Give other drivers plenty of space so they don’t feel like you are invading their personal space.

* Concentrate on driving and pay attention to changes in driving conditions.

* If you make a mistake while driving, acknowledge it.

* If another driver makes a mistake or becomes aggressive, try not to react – remember, it is a mistake, not a personal attack.

* Don’t make offensive hand gestures.

To that I would only add: Keep on movin’, don’t look back (except for the odd head check)

Keeper? No one can take this away from me. Not even after Day 87.

DAY 75: Volunteering with the local steam train fanciers

14 Nov

I'll get the ol' girl up and running in no time.

THE Victorian Goldfields steam train route is visible from my house, and there’s something pupil-dilating about legging it down to the tracks when the smoke comes over the trees and watching the black, huffing engine approach dead-on; like staring down a raging bull.

The 1880s-built railway is totally run by volunteers (compare its $2.5k government grant to the $10 million awarded to Belgrave’s Puffing Billy) and its line of entertainment is not yet as legendary as that of Bellarine’s Blues Train (see Day 18), but it’s a charmer all right.

I’ve decided to volunteer regularly for a bit of whatever – chain-gang work, litter duty, getting in the way in the engine cab – and I’m interviewed by Trish on the train as we trundle first class to Maldon, which is obviously the best interview ever. After rising through the ranks of guard, signalman and fireman, you can eventually work up to engine driver, which I’m pretty excited about, so Trish takes me up to the cab to meet Barry; a top chap who drives freight trains as his day job. He gets me pulling the whistle immediately (a touch too long, if the hands clamped to ears at Maldon station are anything to go by) and doesn’t scoff at my driver aspirations.

The smell of steam is heady as we wait for the engine to gulp down water from what’s essentially a giant tap. A bit of water bubbles up by Barry’s foot, down by the fuel valve, which apparently isn’t supposed to happen.

“It’ll iron his strides for him,” one engineer notes pragmatically.

“He’ll have an accident in his strides if it lets go,” hoots another.

Catherine is also in the cab. Her dad’s an enthusiast who has built to-scale models of trains and used to factor all family holidays around locomotives. She’s finally succumbed to the passion herself.

“I wish I had a passion,” says Trish wistfully. “With these guys you can tell… it’s love.”

Keeper? Yep, they’ll put me to work on the chain-gang in a coupla weeks.

DAY 67: Piloting a plane

6 Nov

I like the way they've tethered it like an old goat.

MY instructor’s name is Andrew, and as we’re yakking away, 7000ft over Bendigo, I ask him why he got the urge to fly. He says he’d always harboured a secret wish to, but thought it too expensive for the likes of him. Then his brother died at 49 and his wife nearly followed suit. That’s when Andrew philosophised you can’t take it with you when you go. He’s been taking people like me for joyrides at $120 an hour ever since.

Upon my arrival at the flying school, Andrew offers me a biscuit and a cup of tea, and draws unfathomable diagrams on a whiteboard. I like him; he’s funny. Then he walks me around a tiny Tecnam P 92 Echo Super so we can check things aren’t going to fall off or fly open.

Climbing in is an intimate experience. I have to fold myself into the left-hand driver’s seat (thankfully this thing has dual controls), and there’s not much in the way of elbowroom. We run through the checks and crank up the propeller, then Andrew gets me to steer us down the runway before he gets us up in the air.

We get some sharp bumps and knocks off kilter as we’re on our way up, which may be “just the atmosphere”, but has me shutting my eyes and gripping the seat with one hand all the same. Andrew’s a trusting sort, as he gets me to keep hold of the joystick with the other hand, even though I might feasibly jerk it in fright if I was a spaz.

Once we clear most of the clouds, though, we’re okay, and weirdly my fear of heights doesn’t kick in – I swore more in my driving lesson.

Andrew sits back with a grin and tells me to just go wherever I want, so I point the thing towards Echuca, avoiding bloody great clouds that loom up here and there. You gotta treat clouds almost like solid objects when you’re in a plane this small, as they’ll throw you around a bit. Oh, and you can’t see.

You steer with both your feet and your hand, but it feels almost impossible to flip this thing over. Every now and then, Andrew fires up the throttle so that the nose veers upwards, and gets me to correct it. Same the other way. On our way back down he shows me how to hug clouds like you would a roundabout, and he goes skimming around one at a cracking pace, like a gleeful kid.

We land with the same grace as a pelican – legs akimbo and arse first – but that’s Andrew’s doing, not mine, and it’s just because the wind comes off the trees and chucks you around. I’m pleased to note my knees aren’t knocking a bit when I clamber out.

Keeper? Going back next week, as a matter of fact.

DAY 62: Learning the ukulele

1 Nov

IF THERE’S one thing that you can be sure of in this topsy-turvy, ever-changing world, it’s that blokes will thrash out ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ over whatever you’re trying to do or say in band rehearsal. I’ve been in and out of ropey bands since I was 16, and that fact has remained constant.

So it’s no surprise to find that, upon joining the local country town ukulele group, the familiar strains of that less-than-original riff comes screaming plinkily out of the souped-up ukulele of the 10-year-old boy next to me. And this is while the rest of us are trying to learn ‘You Are My Sunshine’.

Our tutor, a lovely dapper young chap in a velvet jacket and waistcoat, smiles through gritted teeth: “They’re trying to drag me screaming out of the 30s… into the 90s.”

Keeper? I’ll be back – and I’ll have have learned the solo. (Shouldn’t be hard; it’s only one finger.)

DAY TWENTY-FOUR Making pictures in coffee

24 Sep

Little do we know this jug's about to start bucking like a broncho.

I’VE always wondered how baristas make those magic flowers in your cup of coffee. Finally tiring of my endless musing, I went along to Gridlock Coffee in Melbourne and pestered World Latte Art Champion Con to show me a few moves. He can free pour like nobody’s business.

Whaddaya know though (Joe), it’s not as easy as it looks. Con stands behind me and helps me wobble out a five-leaf tulip like he’s teaching me to play pool. Then it’s my turn to go it alone. Faster than you can say “Ow, that’s hot,” I’ve run out of cup.

Keeper? I’m leaving this one to the professionals.

Easy does it.

There.

DAY EIGHTEEN: Driving a steam engine

18 Sep

WOOHOO! Yeah, revellers of the Blues Train, that righteous honking is me, riding with my boys Dale and Wayne at the engine, totally in charge of that whistle.

Wayne is a boilermaker by trade and engine wizard by nature. He buys and restores old steam bangers ready for the scrapyard.

There’s plenty more woohooing, yahooing, naa-na-na-na-naing and whey-hey-hey-heyta-minuting going on in the carriages as we hammer along the route between Queencliff and Drysdale.

Whipping up some combustible blues are loop pedal sorcerer Claude Hay, hollerin’ and fussin’ Lloyd Spiegel, hellzapoppin’ soul sister Andrea Marr, and the highfalutin’, sharp shootin’… um … rootin’ tootin’ Chris Wilson Band. The Mayor of Bluestown, Hugo T Armstrong, plays Jim’ll Fix It for the day, letting me drive this thundering, chundering beast down the track, if you can call sitting and taking photos of my legs driving… and I think you can.

hot

hot

How did that one get in there?

Keeper? Any time!

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