It was just a bad day. What can you say? I can't remember an outing quite like this. It definitely wasn't what I expected going out there. Kevin Millwood.Yesterday evening I rounded up the girls & headed for my favourite of all cities; Brisbane. Yes, that is irony. Liddy, because she is sweet & felt sorry for me, agreed to finish work early & drive in with us. The plan was that Liddy & I would go see a movie while Ditz did her ditzy thing & sang like a canary because I really hate wandering round the city on a Monday night alone. I just don't feel all that safe.
Ditz wasn't real keen. For some reason she's not thrilled with the QPAC choir & of course the travelling threw mealtimes right out. Monday is also the day the last boat is 10pm but as the kids were to be finished by 8.15 I figured we had plenty of time.
Brisbane parking just gets worse & worse. The parking terminal we wanted is closed for repairs. The next one shut in an hour. Street parking is only for an hour. I suggested we look for the cinema parking, which we'd never managed to find. Big surprise. The entrance was pretty well hidden under a bridge & round a corner & Liddy performed something we suspect was highly illegal to reach it. *sigh*. Between the one way streets, the congestion & the poor sign posting any excursion into Brisbane becomes a tad fraught.
So we parked & I went to buy tickets while Ditz scurried into the loos because she doesn't like the QPAC loos either. And our carefully laid plans fell apart. The movie we'd planned to see, advertised in full glorious techni~colour on their website, hasn't been released yet & nothing else was remotely suitable.
We hurtled up to QPAC trying to decide how we were going to fill all those empty hours but Liddy & I can come apart in these situations because we would choose very different things left to ourselves & some negotiation is necessary. See, I'd have gone to the art gallery; Liddy would do the science fair & while she knows I would do the science & I know she would do the art we both know it is not the other's first choice. In the end, seeing the tickets were only 10 bucks, very reasonable for QPAC, we had coffee with friends & went to the concert.
While we were buying tickets, Liddy, as she does every single time she comes in to QPAC, began drooling over the ballet. In the end she asked me if I would come in to a performance with her & forked over a small fortune to give me an early birthday present to something she wants to see. lol. Never mind. I love the ballet & am sure to enjoy myself. Ditz will be left at home which will not make her a happy Ditz.
I felt for Liddy. I really did. She was exhausted & she doesn't really enjoy the sort of highbrow music that makes up a good 2/3 of these concerts. I do but this was being used as a rehearsal so rather ragged around the edges. Alison directs this choir as well but even being as biased as I am I found myself mentally ticking off all the ways the VM kids were better than the QPAC adults.
The kids were impeccably dressed in their black & whites.
The kids were heaps better disciplined. They filed onto the stage, took their default position & didn't fidget. They knew exactly what they were doing. Ditz did do a bit of a double take when she spotted us in the audience because she wasn't expecting us but we'd have been the only ones to notice because Liddy was trying very hard to get a reaction out of her.
There were only 11 of them but you could hear them anywhere in the hall. They did Esti Dal, a Hungarian folk song, in Hungarian & quite difficult. Apparently that brought the QPAC sopranos to tears. Their second piece was Water/Va Pensiero, which was one of the very first things Ditz ever performed with VM. David Kidd of Ten Tenors fame came in & sang the Water bit.
They sounded better than the QPAC choir. Did I mention I'm biased?
I had a lovely time; Liddy rather less so. She was tired enough I wanted to drive home but Liddy thought she was more awake than I was & as she actually likes driving I let her go. I shouldn't have.
Goodness only knows what she thinks when she drives around Brisbane but she seriously ignored all the signposts & the 2 people in the car screaming at her that she was headed in the wrong direction & immediately beetled across the nearest bridge into North Brisbane. As always we shut up & let her drive herself along to the next bridge to cross back over ~ only last night she came out in an unfamiliar part of Brisbane.
Ditz & I started making: Go Back; wrong way noises at her but Liddy swore she was headed in the right direction. I notoriously have no sense of direction but eventually I pointed out that all the lights she could see were in fact the city lights & she seriously needed to turn the car around & head back the other way. All this took quite a bit off time, enough time that Ditz, who was ravenous & kept bleating about how hungry she was, had no hope of getting even the fastest Maccs possible before getting on a boat.
The last boat always waits a little just because it is the last boat & if you miss it you're doomed so it was nearly 11 pm before we got home & midnight by the time I had fed & watered Ditz. Yes, she's still sleeping. No, our last week of school for the term is not looking brilliant about now. I need a holiday.
13 comments:
I suppose this is not what you want to hear about now, but you had me in tears as I read through your litany of disasters! I'd love to spend an evening with you, Ganeida - we're definitely kindred spirits, as Anne was wont to declare!
Are you going to see Swan Lake? I am wondering whether to try and talk Sis into going but I dont know whether she'll have recovered from camping by then.
Jeanne: I hope they were tears of laughter. Excursions with us tend to be hysterical.
Kimba: No. We're seeing *With Attitude* ~ which is modern & 4 shorter dances. You might actually like *Sync* set, apparently to *propulsive, percussive music*. Dearest would hate it. I will find it *interesting* & Liddy will probably really like it.
Oh my. Give me 26 horses any day!
LOL! I just have to ask: Have you ever missed the last boat? If so, what is the plan then?
I was wondering the same as seekingmyLord...have you ever missed the last boat?
When it rains problems, it pours! I am still laughing about your ballet birthday present though. It reminds me about the time that Mr. Britwife bought the television that HE wanted for ME for Mother's Day. :)
Sandra: As Lid crossed her bridge & Ditz & I rolled our eyes because this is definitely becoming a habit!, lol, I was thinking what a fun post this would be. Then Ditz said, "She'll blog about you, you know," & Liddy said, "I know. I'll have to read it." Seems I have more than one attention seeker in the house.
Seeking & Britwife: As it happens ~ No; we've never actually missed the last boat. If it is music related & we do we have threatened to land on Alison. For anything else we would land on my sons & sleep on the couch. If desparate I would knock up a cousin. Worst scenario, we sleep in the car for the night. There are worse things. Back in the day the last boat was 6pm! Now that wasn't fun.
Ms.G,
I do not know if this is redundant information. But hope I am doing some good here. Your posts about driving in Brisbane cracked me up, now they concern me because who knows what kind of places a woman and young girls may land up in. I took it upon myself to see if this works for you in Australia. It is literally my savior driving wise in America. it is google directions. I apologize for presuming you do not know about this and giving very detailed directions.
1. Go to google Australia web link address
http://www.google.com.au/
2. Click on Maps which is an option on the top left hand side
3. It will take you to a page with the Australia map and a box in which to enter an address ora city and has a 'search map' button next to it.
4. I typed in Brisbane QPAC. I know this from your posts because the Lord knows how much you love Brisbane and it's multiple bridges *wink* (I see they are building more bridges *shakes head*, what ever will you do ?)
5. Typing in Brisbane QPaC in the box next to the 'Search Map' button and clicking on it brought up the address of QPAC (multiple locations a concert hall, a museum among others..choices A through F). I chose the first selection A wit an address of Grey St, South Brisbane QLD 4101 - (07) 3840 7362
6. On the same page on the right hand side, you have a street map with the same choices A through F.
7. I Clicked on A
8. One of the choices one the little window that opens is 'Get Directions'
9. If you click on that it has from here and to here where you put in the address to the location or from the location in the box provided and hit the go button.
10. It should bring up detailed directions. It does for me in America.
Hope this helps in your driving in Brisbane !
God Bless,
Sylvia
I am the absolute worst dunce ever when it comes to city driving.. seriously I am terrible and terrified to boot. So you and Liddy have my admiration. When I have to take Millen in to the city to her special dentist, I actually hire someone to drive, that's how loopy I am. Too bad you don't live nearby- we could all go together and make a day of it;) And Ditz of course has my admiration of her singing. I only wish I could hear her sometime... You must post a vid or something sometime.
Your excursions really make me smile. I'd be nervous about bathrooms, driving AND that last boat...lol. Your sense of humor and perserverence seem to overcome it all. I just know that Liddy and Ditz will have many wonderful memories of these years!
Jan Lyn
Sylvia: Thank you for being concerned & looking up the google info. Liddy googles for new places. For QPAAC we actually know where we're going but for some reason or other Liddy invariably makes a wrong turn & we do a *scenic detour*. We've been down to the docks & half~way to the Sunshine Coast. Brisbane is pretty safe really so all I really stress about is making our boat.
Diane: Liddy bought herself a new camera. Now all I have to do is convince Ditz that what comes so naturally should be blogged for posterity. lol
Jan Lyn: the only way I can cope is to find it all terribly, terribly funny ~ which it is. It's a pain but better if we try to turn these necessary excursions into a fun time.
Life is a jourmey, we get to choose the roads we travel! Yes that does include city roads... Ha ha ha yeah I might have been going in the wrong direction but I got us home without the referdex! (just so ya all know travelling the wrong way would be me saying; not back there not back there subconciously)
Actually I hate modern productions so I won't even think about that one but thanks for alerting me to the Russian "Swan Lake". We may actually go if we can get tickets.
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