How to Clear a Room in 10 Seconds Flat

This happens at our house, only smaller.

Our second outing at the Caloundra Street Fair was again a bit of fun, and there wasn’t a banjo busker in sight.  But we did have a very loud didgeridoo player nearby, with a wailing woman accompanist.  You know those accompanists who don’t sing actual words, don’t hum, don’t la-la-la melodiously, but just wail along with the tune?  The same as you might sound if you don’t know the words of a song but feel the need to fake it and loudly join in anyway.  Or if you’re caterwauling in the shower one fine morning.  Or if you have severe appendicitis.   

1950s ceramic liqueur bottle.

You know that I’ve encouraged a bit of reader activity in my posts lately, so here is today’s task:  pick a favourite song, drop the words and insert your wailing instead.  Go on – the worst that can happen is that someone accidentally calls an ambulance for you.  I tried it to Baker Street (by Gerry Rafferty), substituting the saxophone for me.  

And yes, it did clear the room – in somewhat faster than 10 seconds - but hey that was my first go!  I think I show good potential as a wailing woman if I practice a bit more.  Doug says he speaks on behalf of himself and all the moggies when he says Please Don’t.  He’ll be sorry when I’m a famous wailing woman.

I am thinking of having this reproduced.

But there was only so much wailing one woman could do, so our accompanist wasn’t a permanent fixture.  And in a charming twist and a nice melding of cultures which seemed appropriate on Australia Day, during an extended solo the didgeridoo player inserted occasional choruses of Aussie-Aussie-Aussie! Oi-Oi-Oi!  Kind of funny, weird, sweet, and unlike any other indigenous performer I’ve ever heard.

Then came Caleb’s Big Day Out the following Saturday, when he made a special guest appearance at Oople, in Eumundi.  He enjoyed himself immensely, and for the most part he was a good boy and posed nicely for photos.  I hesitated to let him loll about on my jewellery cabinet as he used to do in our shop, because he’s 7kg now and I wasn’t sure the glass top would support him.  But he was determined to climb on and yowled and growled and grumbled until I gave in, and it was fine. 

Caleb receiving guests with Jules at Oople.

The one disappointment of the morning was that the joyful reunion with Polly the Poodle didn’t work out as planned.  Caleb is now 3kg heavier than Polly, but even when they were closer in size she wasn’t impressed with being jumped on and wrestled to the ground.  Now he’s a lot bigger than her, and she didn’t want to be friends any more.  Not one bit.  Poor Polly the Poodle sat trembling on her owner’s lap, and wouldn’t even touch noses.   

Polly did not want to be friends.

So Polly went home, and Caleb returned to admirers who weren’t afraid of him.  Until he disgraced himself and cleared the room (hint: He smelled bad! Clutch your throat, eye-watering, have-we-been-attacked-by-chemical-terrorists? bad).  We couldn’t pin the blame on Polly the Poodle because she had already scarpered, so we decided that his guest appearance had concluded at that point and carted him home, where he was all tuckered out and inclined to snuggle.  Believe me when I tell you that my technique to clear a room is nothing like as effective as Caleb’s.

Next it was on to the Peregian Beach Sunday morning market, and we’re really happy with this venue.  Almost all of our wooden items are now gone, almost all of our enamel, and the vintage and reproduction French pictures are selling so well it will be essential that I source more on our next buying trip.  I’ve started to unpack the other boxes, to bring out some very nice glass and interesting ceramics, some of which I've featured here.  They’ve been well received so I’ll be unpacking more this week.

1940s ceramic cake stand.

We appear to have settled into a permanent spot at Peregian Beach Market, directly behind the sand dunes with a direct view of the beach, and how wonderful it is to have those lovely sea breezes on a hot day.  I photographed one of the many small burrows that were clearly in active use between us and the beach, and wonder if anyone knows what critter would use them?  Brown snake is the wrong answer.

Any ideas what critter lives here?

We’ve asked for a casual stand at the Caloundra Street Fair for Sunday 9 February, so we’ll see if we get in again.  I’m trying for every first and third Sunday morning at Peregian Beach, and every second and fourth Sunday morning at the Caloundra Street Fair.  We bring visitors’ chairs with us and so far visitors have come and ensconced every time, which has been splendid and a great way to keep in touch.

Something I miss about the shop was the pleasure of meeting nice people, who came so often they became friends.  But we’ve already met some nice people at the markets who visit us every time we take a stand, and former regulars at the shop are now becoming regulars at the markets, so we’re re-establishing the social nature of the shop.  Mind you, I don’t get to chat as much as I’d like to because we’re usually pretty busy, so we’ll have to schedule some purely chat time as well.   Get your people to contact my people.

Some of the nice glass & ceramics we've unpacked.

Oh, and here’s a Heads-Up.  You know I mentioned a few posts ago that I was probably going to change the name of the Blog from Chequered Past to Continuum?  We’ll that’s now decided and I will do that.  But not only will I rebrand, I am also going to change sites.  Blogspot has been good, but gradually things are breaking down that apparently can’t be fixed – such as people who have subscribed can no longer get automatic email updates from me – so I shall move to Word Press.  But that will take time, especially if I have to go into full planning mode for another buying trip soon and we shall find out about that this week, I hope.  So it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.  Just letting you know it’s coming.

 

Moi?  How could you think such a thing?  It was Polly the Poodle, I swear.