With the sun shining brightly but the weatherman forecasting ominously we left Brooke’s halfway house and Gerard’s home and headed to the foot of the Dandenong ranges to meet with Dee. Gem had been emailing her sporadically over the last 12 months, as she is a breeder of a Tibetan Mastiff.
With a thought of perhaps getting one of these beautiful dogs when we are settled we thought we would go and meet her and her dogs.
The dogs were absolutely gorgeous. There was a little bit of slobber, and there was a little bit of hair, but they were absolutely gorgeous. If there had been puppies there, I think that Gem would have slipped one in her bag on the way out.
After spending some time with dogs, learning about their temperaments, their personalities, how to Brush them and of course how to feed them, Dee fed us. It was like a home away from home. Our sandwiches had home made mayo on them, just like mum makes and home made lemonade just like mum makes. It was amazing!
It was quite a crazy time for Dee because apart from her daughters recent wedding, family birthdays etc etc, her very first Tibetan Mastiff was dying. She lay quietly at the end of the hall throughout our entire visit, not able even to come and check out what all the excitement was about. Quite sad.
The ominous weather came in right about as we left Dee and it absolutely poured, the flood warnings that the weatherman had issued that morning seemed more appropriate now.
Tonight we stayed in Hawthorn. This leafy suburb is apparently home to Melbourne’s rich and famous including all the footy players. But for us it was home to Jeff and Cecile. We played quite a few seasons of netball with Jeff in London, and he is a Perth Boy! He and his girlfriend have moved back to Oz but decided that Melbourne might be a little more happening for them after living in London for so long. They very generously lent us their spare room to stay for a few days.
We caught up over the worlds driest Pizza (seriously, it was like they had forgotten to put any sauce on it at all) and chatted about our trip and their move to Melbourne. It was really nice to see them again.
So while we were sitting around chatting Dunc got a call from Grant. Apparently Ruth had called there to see if they knew where we were. Disaster! Mrs Butefisch told them that we were in Malaysia. Fabulous, months and months of lies and secret keeping undone in a single moment. What to do!? What to do!? In a little bit of a panic Gem called Grant to find out what happened before calling her mum. She logged onto her email to find nothing from her mum, but a facebook message from Sonia suggestion that she call or text her.
So she decided to bite the bullet and call her mum to find out if any damage control was possible. The conversation went a little something like this:
Ruth: “So where are you”?
Gemma “Almaty in Kazakhstan”
Ruth “Is that where you are really??”
Gemma “Of course, where else would we be” (deny deny deny)
Ruth “Well its just that we have some post here from the Avon Health Service, we opened it and it is a job offer”
Gemma, silently (crap crap crap)
Ruth continues “Yes it is addressed to 30 Killara Place, but he postal service noticed that it had your name on it and redirected it to us”
Gemma silently (crap crap crap, you have got to be kidding me)
Gemma “Well that is really bizarre, I expressed some interest in a job at Northam, but I can’t imagine how a job offer has come out of that”!!!!
Ruth “Well your father has been running around thinking that you will be home next week”
Gemma (laughs a little hysterically) “No no, definitely not, sorry”
After a little more talking and pretending to write down reference numbers etc Gem hung up. After lengthy discussions with Duncan we decided not to come clean entirely, but we felt we needed to tell Ruth something. First of all we did not expect that she would have believed Gem’s story, and secondly Gem needed that job contract!!!!
So Gem waited and waited until she felt sure that her dad would be asleep and rang her mum back. But no, by some strange coincidence her dad was still up, and answered the phone. Panicking Gem hung up and then thought well that will actually be good for authenticity and called back.
Telling Ian that she needed to speak to Mum again about the reference numbers, the conversation went a little like this:
Gemma “Ok mum, you are going to have to do some acting, while I tell you what is going on”
Ruth: “Acting?!?”
Gemma: “Shhhhh, don’t yell it out, just listen for a moment”
Ruth: “Ok”
Gemma: “So I didn’t really think that you would believe what I said before, so I am going to tell you what is happening but you have to keep it a secret. We are not in Almaty we are….. (thinking, thinking) … in Estonia! The job is mine, but I don’t start until February and we are coming back mid January and were hoping to surprise everyone. But now the stupid overly-efficient Australian Postal system has ruined everything. Can you still keep it a secret from Dad and the family and Dunc’s parents?”
Ruth: “Yes definitely”
And so the conversation continued for a little while with Gem’s mum holding the charade beautifully. Although it is not ideal hopefully it will get us through til Christmas. Exhausted at having to stay up so late, we went to bed!!
