20170413 – Thursday – Getting sorted

20170413 – Thursday – Getting sorted

I have pretty well sat in the same spot for most of the morning and half of the afternoon. People have flowed by me as they all come down to check out the swimming area. I am trying to remember everyone’s names and it is really hard, but I am working at it. To my right and further down the river bank the Palmer’s are parked. I think his name is Phil Palmer and he is son of Marion Palmer (King) and David Palmer, and he is married to Karen Palmer (Hyndman) and she is daughter of Barbara and Grant Hyndman and Graeme Hyndman is Karen’s brother. Karen very kindly purchased some packages of Roast beef from Waikerie for me which is a welcome addition to my diet today. She used to be a member of TTG before she married Phil and now attends Happy Valley.

Stephen Higg’s brother came by, but I can’t remember his first name, but he is married to one of George and Barbara Hawkins daughters and again her first name escapes me. We dug deep into our combined memory banks and we both recalled a time in WA when she was a child when we were all shopping with her mother Barbara, and I purchased some broaches, one each for her and her sisters. The broaches were in the shape of bicycles and she told me that she still has the broach and that she liked it so much that she got Joe Mednyanski to put an opal into its setting. A bicycle? But that was fashionable in those days. So many random memories.

I like camping alone. I think I am getting more reclusive as the years go by. I love sitting at the back of my little trailer and typing away all by myself. I like company too, but I do love plenty of study time, and you can’t do that with people around you. I have been reading NCs Job study # 1 that he did at Houston, and that I have transcribed. I keep all the studies I transcribe in my Tecarta eBible and love to read and reread them. I love Nev’s studies, he is such an excellent student and I feel I can trust his exposition. By the time this camp is over I will certainly know a lot more about Job than I did before I started transcribing.

One of the Beard boys asked me if he could have the large log that is sitting next to my site. I said yes, and he will be coming back to move it later. He wants to use it for firewood during the camp. I looked at the camp site in my mind, with the log removed, and realised that there was room for another camper to set up. I rang Trevor Gore and asked him if he had arrived and was he settled in yet, because there was a spare site. He said he was already set up and not only that it would have to have been big enough for two vans because he and Ali are with Leigh and Sherree Samwell. Trev came to have a look at the site anyway, just in case, and while he was here he helped me back my trailer into a better position for privacy and he also unhitched my trailer so that I can use my car while I am here.

Well, this was all good for me, now I can drive to the meetings and the amenities block if I need to in the middle of the night. Of course, from tomorrow the “Gore” loos will be open and I have one of them a short distance from my trailer. Another plus that I now have is that there is a big log with a hole in the top right next to my trailer and I can put my umbrella in that. How good is that? All these little things help.

After Trev had left, I got into my car and drove through the camp site almost to the entry gate and turned left to go to the amenities block. As I drove I heard a little voice calling “Aunty Fay” and it was Abbi Lunn. I stopped my car and gave her a hug through the window and she told me that her dad’s car was the one with “the two black stripes” on it” so I kept an eye out for it while I was driving. The flat was getting crowded with caravans, and there was so much bustle going on with people setting up their rigs and getting sorted out ready for tomorrow.

I drove right up to the loos and they are building a new wing and it looks to me that they are expecting to have it up and running by tomorrow. My dad designed the first “hot water system” for the camp may years ago and it lasted for years without too much alteration having to me made. My dad was such a clever man. Well, I think the river will do for me this camp. Yesterday worked pretty well and I really don’t feel like joining the queues for the showers each day. I remember one year when my own children were young, I would wake up in my trailer and find a row of little girls standing in a line at the back of my trailer waiting for me to wake up so that I could do their hair in “fish braids.” Those were the days, so many years ago.

Tonight is the last night before the camp actually starts, and the best night for socializing before the “light brigade” comes into action, and the curfew is in place. “Lights out” at the camp is 11.00 pm, but tonight no curfew at all, so a billion kids will be wandering around tonight meeting up and casting their eyes over “the talent.” My daughter Helen rang me earlier in the day and told me that my grandson Jordan is going to be at the camp, so that will be great to see him again. I told her to tell him that I am camped near the swimming hole, so he should be able to find me easily enough.

It is almost 4.00 am in the morning as I write and I am sitting up in my little trailer typing away. The reason I am so awake so early is that when I got back to my camp yesterday at about 5 pm I was just so exhausted that I went to bed and slept until about 9 pm. When I woke up I could hear that there was still lots of activity around the camp; kids walking by, laughing and talking, someone was chopping wood, and people were still coming in and driving by looking for camp sites.

I got a text from Verity Edgecombe saying that she was safely at Wagga Wagga on way to Bible School, and I also got a text from Beulah Edwards from NZ saying that she is coming to Adelaide and would like to meet up, so that will be nice too, she is coming sometime in May. I answered both texts and sent some pictures of the camp here at Glenlock. I love it that communication is so easy these days, that one can keep in touch with so many people. I am grateful to all the Bill Gates, Elon Musk’s and Dick Smith’s even, and their ilk who have made it all so easy. I have a very strong love/hate relationship with technology.

In an hour or so, I will get into my bathers and go across to the swimming hole for my “daily ablutions.” My hair hasn’t been properly washed with shampoo for days now, and it won’t be for the whole of the camp, just washed in the water of the mighty Murray, that’s all.