Backyard Bivouac

Last night I had some fun with the kids in the back yard. We build a cubby house, or to be more accurate, a bivouac.

A bivouac is a temporary shelter made out of whatever you can find close by.

It's the middle of the school holidays and the kids have actually been playing outside and as human nature dictates they're obsessed with building a shelter... It's instinctive, if you leave a kid outside for long enough they will start gathering stuff and build a house!

I wanted my dinner but my eldest child started to throw a wobbly because I had to dismantle the tent we had in the yard. We thought about it for a little while, looked around the yard, and this is what we came up with.

 

 

 Materials: 

- folding ladder

- 6 x 6 tarp

- two bamboo poles (taken from the veggie garden which was not doing too well anyway)

- 5 pieces of string 

- 3 tent pegs

- couple of cushions

Time taken:

6 minutes

 

Presto! The best bivouac we've ever made. Dad's popularity rating leaps from tolerated buffoon to beloved hero parent no.1 in record time. We actually had to call the kids into the house long after dark! I couldn't believe it!

Living in the  tropics I think this quote is fairly apt:

Bivouac

Bivouacking is miserable work in a wet or unhealthy climate, but in a dry and healthy one, there is no question of it's superiority over tenting. Men who sleep habitually in the open breathe fresher air and are far more imbued with the spirit of wild life, than those who pass the night within the stuffy enclosure of a tent.

The art of Travel.

 (Quoted by Tahir Shah in the book 'House of the Tiger King-The quest for a lost Inca City'. )

When I was young some mates and I used to sleep out in the bush a bit in a fairly makeshift shelter. Mostly made out of branches but we could usually find a bit of tin for the roof. It was a bit unnerving though when we discovered scorpions under our groundsheet!

Since then I haven't done much rough camping although I've been lucky enough to visit Elcho Island during the dry season to attend a Cross Cultural Mediation Program, where I much prefer to sleep outside under the stars than to share a tent with 4 other smelly participants. I've slept on the ground, It's pretty comfortable on the cliff edge or on the ceremonial beach sand after a few hours of dancing! Usually though once the tents are set up, I grab my fold out bed (Bloody luxury!) and set it up a couple of meters away from the tents and keep all my gear on top so it doesn't blow away when the dry wind sweeps across the island during the day. The nights are absolutely magic outside I don't get why the others don't do it. I always hear them complaining when someone farts or snores. From my bed I look up through the stars and into the eyes of God! True! Out doors is so much sweeter than indoors... unless it's the wet season.

Murray's bivouac - Flight of the Conchords

Bivoac.What a funny word. Kids love turning the house inside out and turning the furniture into tunnels, caves and of course bivouacs. I used to do this as a kid but if you're a fan of Flight of the Conchords you'll know that this even adults can have fun making a bivouac indoors. ;) 

Ever since I saw Series two, episode 4 of  'Flight of the Conchords', the word bivouac has caused me to break into hysterics! Actually if you're a fan this episode also has the song 'Friends' on it.

In this scene Murray senses that Jermaine and Bret aren't much into building bivouacs. He asks in all seriousness: "You think building a bivouac is childish?"

 They do but later you see Jermain perfecting the construction of the bivouac which they didn't dismantle when Murray left. I am lucky. As a parent I can declare the building of indoor bivouacs out of bed sheets and cushions as childish but still engage in the activity if I want to and even get points for being a 'Good Dad'. 

Ha! Happy bivouacking kiddies!

Dental cabaret

Teeth again!
I'm sure I've written about my teeth before. Teeth are important we should look after them right!
I'm not on a crusade for dental care I'm just fascinated by the fact that it is possible for people to outlive their teeth, when in ages past, lack of teeth was surely a sign of decrepit obsolescence and senility... anyway I'm not planning to go Yul Brynner on oral hygiene but my new dentist has assured me my teeth would last longer if I flossed... So "...whatever you do! Just..." FLOSS OK!

After loosing a huge chunk of tooth last year the date for my appointment at the Public Dental Clinic has finally arrived! And what time was my appointment you ask... (OK you wouldn't ask that question but let's just pretend you did!)

My appointment was for 2:30! Get it? Two Thirty.... Oh Come ON! Do I have to spell it out for you? "TOOTH HURTEE!" It's a joke! or a pun or something like that! I use it all the time!

It goes like this...
I say - "What time is it?"
You say - "Two thirty".
I say - "Well you'd better go to the dentist then..." Waka Waka Waka"

Ok, so I'm at my Toof hurtee appointment at the free clinic for folks who can't afford a qualified dentist and I meet my Student practitioner... He's a clean cut young fella from Brisbane... maybe Indian descent. He's sitting down with his leg out stretched.
"Good afternoon" He says with a smile. "My name is ------  (I'll call him Dr Teeth) I am a student dentist, as you can see I have a broken foot. Are you happy for me to conduct this consultation today?"
"Oh yeh.." I say... "Hey I could have tripped over that!" Trying to keep the interaction light while noticing that both the Dentist (Student dentist) and his assistant appear so young they could be just a couple of kids wagging school and here for a laugh!

The consultation continues... Dr Teeth inspects my battle scarred choppers and proceeds to list the casualties and those missing in action... Lucky for me you can't get locked up for for tooth neglect! I think he listed 6 as missing! He must have counted the wisdom teeth...
"Better check the floor.. I'm sure I had them when I came in!" 

So it's all going quite well. It's obvious he's not going to get down to business on the smashed tooth so I'm kind of relaxed and enjoying the banter. Dr Teeth tells me about his foot and how he came to Darwin in between rattling off the location and chemical compounds of every filling in my mouth to his assistant. By now I'm kind of enjoying myself, this guy is really light hearted for a dentist! Then he performed a maneuver that nearly caused me to choke on the ex-ray plate in my mouth.

We place the uncomfortable piece of plastic sheath in my mouth... I bite down on it as intended... fighting the urge to gag on the bloody thing... Then Dr Teeth says to me in all seriousness, hold perfectly still while I hop over here and press the button...
I'm sitting up straight focusing on a spot on the wall directly in front of me... not moving a muscle... Then Dr Teeth hops across the room on one leg right past my field of vision! The bastard! If you've ever seen the Centurian Guard in the Life of Brian trying to hold back a laugh... you'll have a pretty good idea of the situation I was in! He presses the button. The photo is taken and I nearly choked on the uncomfortable piece of crap I had in my mouth! It was so funny I couldn't believe it!

Apparently there's a fair bit of work to do and I have to go back in a few weeks! Same Dentist, Same time! I can't wait to see what he comes up with for my next visit! Apparently I'm in line for a root canal and a crown...
Life on a low income is such good value! I could never afford a root canal or to go to the theater... when I was earning more money, now here I am, technically poor(ish) and I'm served cabaret and tooth repair for nothing! Now that I've got the date for my next appointment I'll have to schedule a session at the blood bank for the morning so I can make a day of it...

Managing the mischief

"Don’t throw sticks at butterflies in trees!"

That’s the conversation I had with child 1 recently… That's the sort of conversation we have on a regular basis... Sometimes it drives me crazy! "Don't stick those skinks in the bucket full of water, they'll drown!" Don't shake the bush with birds nest in it the babies will fall out and die!" "Clap your hands together to catch the moths, you'll crush their wings!" If you like a peaceful life and think settling down and having kids might be some kind of serene dignified way of growing older with grace… Good luck to you! You might find it an adventure into the limits of sanity, tolerance and acceptance. If you struggle with feelings of powerlessness and wish to seize control of your own life, if you want to develop a set of values to live by and never falter, you're in for a big surprise if you think this will be easy when raising a family! You might find that every day is a battle to maintain even a thread of who you aspire to be. You might find that as you trudge from one day to the next you are lucky if you can make the vaguest of symbolic gestures toward the life you intended to live. You might find that your daily routine, directly contradicts those virtues you were hoping to nurture. The design you had intended to live by might now only be nothing more than a wistful dream you had selfishly harbored in the space between changing the dirty nappies and washing a pile of dirty dishes. Or worse still clawing your way through a swathe of plastic toys to the front door, clambering out of the air-conditioned unit, with an arm full of Mac Donald's wrappers for the bin!   

Marrying someone doesn’t make that person your minion and spawning fry does not guarantee the children will be a physical representation of all you aspire to be.  Ha! If you wanted that you could have created an avatar in Second Life!

This is real! This is where the rubber meets the road! This is where the shit can sometimes ‘…hit the fan!’

Am I Bitching? Nahhhh! 'It's All Good!'

There are funny times as a parent too. Amongst all the madness and fighting there is a lot of humor!

Yesterday the kids were arguing over a toy. One of us told them if they didn’t sort it out we’d switch the toy off! By now the youngest is really annoying the eldest child, it went something like this:

 Eldest child :   “If you don’t stop that I’ll turn you off!”

Youngest child retorts promptly and quite seriously : “But you can’t…! I don’t have any button!”

We all burst into laughter, our little one fancies himself as a comedian. Although he was serious about the fact that he had no switch that could be pushed to turn him off, he immediately capitalized on the situation to try and keep us laughing.

Damn these kids are funny!

As I've posted previously, I feel like I am lacking in originality, however that is not true. I am surrounded by it! If I quoted half of the crazy stuff my kids have said I'm sure I'd have a best seller! 

Oh yeh, Child 1 received a prize for colouring-in a picture for a local supermarket. She has also completed the poster that Sam copied for her (minus the corporate branding). The final product was pretty good.

Child 1 painting a Christmas Poster