Got up early Saturday and helped Gibbo load the chooks for the local poultry show; 42 birds in all! I skipped this show as Drewy and I headed to Toowoomba for two reasons – 1) his Wednesday night drama group was having a short presentation at The Empire Church to showcase some of the work they’d been doing this year and 2) to go winter clothes shopping (and to see if anything caught his eye for his looming 17th birthday – I’m really stumped for ideas this time).
We headed to GC and did a quick recon of the clothing shops to get an idea of what was out there. He’s very easy to shop with – he knows exactly what he likes (and doesn’t like) and is happy to try on and buy. We ended up with 5 t-shirts from Myer, a pair of jeans from some obscure shop and an overcoat, belt, shorts, jocks, shoes and beanie from a well known surf shop that PLAYS ITS' MUSIC WAY TOO LOUD for mothers like me. We had a quick bite to eat then shot up to The Empire where I dropped him off.
I had a couple of hours to kill so I wandered off up the street and bought two pair of fingerless gloves (pink for Meg, blue for me) and to Dymocks where I easily killed an hour or so (and bought two little books – Now is the Time and It’s Never Too Late which I’ll post from occasionally. I could do well to take some of this advice now and again). I gave $5 to the violin busker out the front of the bookshop and as I crossed the road to head to The Coffee Club I came across a shop that had iPads on display – so I went in a played with one for a while. Oohh, now I want an iPad. It was beautiful and sleek and really fast and clear and very up my alley. I could blog so easily on it, anytime, anywhere. There’s plenty of reasons to get one and only a few why I shouldn’t – and I can justify the whole thing (in my mind at least) by paying for it from my tins that I’ve been saving into just waiting for something special to come along (like a new camera or a walking trip in NZ or Tasmania – or an iPad!). After the coffee I walked back for the showcase performance.
The youngest and middle group went first, before Drews' group came on. The script was developed entirely by the cast and was only loosely written; they relied mainly on the idea they had come up with over the last few weeks and really just took it from there. It was actually very good, being about misunderstandings, gossip and rumours in relationships leading to assumptions and confusion between people. Drew played the main role of Eric. There were some great performances by the students and I was pretty impressed by them all and they really enjoyed it too. It lasted about 20 minutes; I had a quick chat to the teacher and then Drewy and I left; I wanted to take him to see the iPad to see what he thought.
We spent another 20 minutes playing with one and spoke to the salesman who could do well to learn to be a little less superior and a little more ‘of the people’ – so I won’t be buying my iPad off him. Then we ducked back to GC for Drew to check out the deals at Sanity and for me to go to the national phone carrier shop to ask about pre-paid iPad deals. The lady there was extremely unknowledgeable and couldn’t help us at all – in fact, I thought her colleague might have been close to hitting her at one stage. Lucky I wasn’t a mystery shopper! It was awful. I also managed a few minutes in my favourite shop – Tree of Life – and bought a beautiful, colourful woollen scarf to remind me of this day. On the way back to the car we found ourselves in JB’s where I found a movie for Gibbo and spent the rest of the time either a) admiring the iMac Pro and 2) watching part of Avatar on a 3D screen – very impressive.
We headed for home, into the blazing sun, warm and toasty in the car. We’d had such a great day together; he really is a wonderful child. We played songs through his iPod (notice how everything has an ‘i’ in front of it today!). I was surprised to hear some of the music genres on the machine – he played some of my favourites and even an old Rick Springfield song from the early 80’s. We listened to a bit of John Denver (Follow Me and Leavin’ on a Jet Plane – oh dear, that made me cry); The Waifs (Gillian – that made me cry); Bruce Springsteen playing the Seeger Sessions (Mr Froggie went a-Courtin’ – that made me sing and laugh), finished off by I Wanna be a Billionaire before he headed back into the modern day rap/crap/techno/I just don’t get it songs.
We had such a great day together, one I’ll always remember. On the way home he got a message from one of the girls in his drama class. She said she’d just spent the last hour listening to her school drama teacher tell her how talented Drew was and that it’s really hard to get a compliment out of the teacher. So maybe there is something there for him to explore and work with down the track. I’m not the right person to ask because I am so totally biased (as any mother would be).
So we got home and showed and shared our purchases and caught up on the days’ happenings with the other guys. The poultry show went well – a few certificates but no ribbons this time. Megan met Mr P. the goat man – and arranged to visit him to “discuss” the pros and cons of having a goat. I somehow felt like the train was moving on the tracks but the driver had left the cabin. I know exactly where this is leading………and you will too in the next post.
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