The Trouble With Keys

One of our previous house owners offered a short sit, slumming it down in McLarenvale with a small fluffy dog and a plethora of vineyards and cafes available for taste testing.  Short straws were drawn and the upshot was that Roger took himself off for the hardship posting and I stayed home with the big fluffy dog.

Roger, buoyed by the retreat of his back problems, took himself off to McLarenvale a day early and by bicycle,  along the way staying in a caravan park beside the sea.  He pedaled all day into an arctic head wind, consoling himself at the cafes scattered along the waterfront and perfecting the art of finding sheltered places for picnics.

The struggle is real.

In the sun, out of the wind. Perfect.

He pitched his tent in the arctic wind and sought shelter, first in the caravan park laundry for the purposes of recharging, and then in a warm and cosy bar with comfortable chairs and patrons playing Uno. 

For sure a hardship posting.

It was a very civilised way to get to McLarenvale, if you didn't count the arctic wind and the very cold night which necessitated him wearing all his clothes in his sleeping bag and still being chilly around the edges.

I drove down to McLarenvale to deliver the car, me being the one who was going to rely on public transport and my bicycle for the week.  

I took my own little coffee-related seaside detour along the way.

 

The little dog greeted us rapturously while his owners delivered a barrage of instructions, introduced us to the new washing machine (which none of us had licences to drive), and left to catch a plane.  I got on my bicycle and off I went along the rail trail to catch the train home.  

All the hills were dressed in lush springtime green, the grape vines sparkling with new leaves, the arctic wind had taken itself off and left a cold but gentle breeze that pushed me gently up the hills.

 I caught an empty train to the city and as I arrived my phone pinged.

Well that's not good.

Indeed it wasn't good,  although the key had the good grace to wait until the car was parked in the garage before giving up the ghost, thus saving Roger from walking home from Woolworths with ice cream melting in his shopping bags and the car abandoned in the car park.  Small mercies, and all that,  but here we were in the unenviable position of me having the working car keys and Roger having the car with the small matter of 38km between the two and the necessity of both us having to rearrange our tomorrow's plans in order to fix the problem.

We arranged a rendezvous for a ceremonial key-transfer on the morrow, and I rode my bicycle home through the post-football crowds and along the river in the last of today's daylight.  

Big mobs of footy fans, all on the bridge I want to ride across.

Lucky I've got a bicycle, is all I can say.