I ain’t no hippy and I ain’t really no new age cosmic space cadet
or to be honest a believer in much more than you make your own bed. Kym is, I’m
not. But some weird shit’s been going
down over the last few years and it’s freaking me out a bit.
For those that know fuck all about me I’ll give you as brief
a summary as I can.I am English, I mostly grew up there (Army parents, some
shuffling) and I am currently 43 (only just). I met my wife 14 years ago and we’ve
been married 10. I’ve travelled a fair bit in search of surf and along the way
I have tried my fair share of most things. Some I have enjoyed more than
others, shrooms, weed; and some I have not enjoyed at all, actually, only one,
smack. There’s only one I still enjoy regularly and that’s alcohol. I think the
reason I’ve told you this is relevant because (a) It shows I’m not averse to
sampling new things and (b) I’m not stupid enough to let them become a necessity
and can be objective about altered states of mind. We planned/plan to have kids
but a major fuck-up in 2004 and then nothing until a miscarriage in 2010 brings
us to where we are now.
Wise decisions at young ages put us both in the fortunate
positions of being home owners with small borrowings even before we met and as
a consequence, put us in a position to be able to choose to live somewhere
warmer and with better surf than the UK. Australia was an obvious choice. Fuck
flying. We’d done enough of it already, so a plan was hatched to drive here. We
set off in April 2009 and arrived in Australia in March 2010 19 countries later.
In September while staying in Perth Kym (that’s my wife) miscarried. We carried
on around the coast heading for our original destination, the Sunshine Coast in
Queensland and looking back, this is when things started to get… well, weird.
At friends in Victoria en-route we browsed rental sites for
ideas on where and what we should be looking for on the Sunny coast. On that
first look we spotted an old Queenslander (timber, stilted, single storey) surrounded
by woodland with a fair rental price. We liked it so much I emailed the agents.
We were still 6 weeks away and they suggested sending a friend around to view
it and make an application. We had no friends on the coast. Kym was so convinced she wanted it that she
printed a photo of the house and pinned it to our dash. The date the house was
to become vacant was delayed by 6 weeks.
We got the house. The view from the deck at the rear is
almost identical to the view from our old cottage in England (we didn’t have
kangaroos hopping about though). Our container was pulled from storage in
Brisbane and we made it our new home with all the stuff shipped from the UK.
Kym walked straight into a job hairdressing and I after a brief interview while
out surfing I started work as a painter.
All good, but it doesn’t end there. I bought a car and ended
up playing squash Monday nights with the bloke I bought it off. One day he didn’t
turn up so I asked one of the 3 blokes playing on the next court if he wanted a
hit. His name was Gary. His mates name was Gary. It was both their birthdays
that day. The 3rd bloke fortunately was only a Tony. I’ve never
played with the car guy again; it’s now 3 Gary’s and Tony. One day Tony said he
was a man short for his Tuesday night doubles so I went. I was introduced to
Mike and Wayne who, it turns out, is married to one of Kym’s clients Yvonne. Wayne
organised a dinner where I got to meet the missing player who was called
Dennis. My regular partner back in the UK was Mike Dennis.
I bought a surfboard on eBay from a guy called Josh. It was
made by a local shaper called Bart. I snapped it. I rang Josh to get Bart’s
number to see if he could repair it. I ended up getting on with Bart (getting
on, not getting it on you perverts)
and over the course of the next year, along with a few ding repairs, I got him
to shape me a new board. He then asked if I could paint his house which I duly
did and whilst painting his house realised how busy he was. Bored of painting
and with work drying up anyway I decided to make a big leap and ask if he would
employ me as a trainee. The day I went to ask him Josh was there. I had not
seen Josh since the day I bought that board off him. Bart gave me a job.
We have a cat, he chose us when we went to an animal rescue
centre to get one. He had already been named. His name is Victor. This is my
Mums nick name for her partner of 25yrs Chris who passed away 5yrs ago.
One of our favourite people Ketut at 39 has been unlucky in
love. He lives on Bali and a couple of years ago met an Australian girlfriend
and married her recently. Her name is Michelle she is from Coolum on the
Sunshine coast and we met her for lunch and she is lovely.
It’s not all good shit mind you. Most of it for sure but the
odd shit weird thing happens too. One of my dearest friends had to have major
brain surgery in the UK last November. The surgery didn’t go well. Kym believes
butterflies can be the souls of people who have left us. On my way to work one
morning a beautiful tropical butterfly flew straight into my windscreen. My very
first thought was ”I hope that’s not Martin” in that instant my phone rang, it
was Kym to tell my Martin had passed away.
We have decided to seek help with a fertility specialist, we
have unexplained infertility. The company offered us a choice of 5 specialists
on the coast for referral, Kym went with one of the two women on the list. On
our 2nd visit with her she noticed we live on the same road. Not
only the same road… she’s our neighbour, separated by a large field. We begin
IVF this week.
Maybe it’s time I started believing.
