What to do when your husband is on fire
Trip Start
Jan 21, 2011
1
17
23
Trip End
May 01, 2012
Where I stayed
Our lovely house sit
Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia
Thursday, July 28, 2011
My sister Emma came to visit us for a week almost as soon as we got back from our sailing trip, and it was lovely to spend time with her as we hadn't seen her since our wedding. Unfortunately for her we only had a few days of lovely sunshine before the rain and clouds kicked in, but we were able to show her around a little and guzzle lots of wine before she made her way to Sydney to see some other friends. It was really nice to have some family around again and it made us more excited about my parents visit in August too!
Our aim once we were settled was to try and find jobs as quickly as possible, but unfortunately Airlie seems to be going through a bit of a slump at the moment with tourism on the downturn possibly due to the almost world-wide recession. The jobs in this area are usually tourism related, especially for backpackers, and mainly in the form of working in hostels in return for free accommodation. Obviously due to our house sit this wasn't going to work for us, and it seemed that every job we enquired about there were hundreds of local applicants and they were all permanent positions. Being honest folk we didn't want to lie about how long we would be here for, only to to hand our notices in in a matter of months, so we just weren't getting anywhere. Plus we have finally realised how much of a bad name backpackers get. We were judged everywhere we went with people being either incredibly rude or incredibly patronising, both of which got my back up. Some of the backpackers don't do themselves any favours in this department - getting wasted all day every day and lolloping themselves around the place leaves a lot to be desired - but they are actually a minority. I felt quite angry that we were being treated like annoyances rather than people who were interested in travel and learning about other countries and cultures, not to mention the fact that Airlie relies on tourism to survive! Anyway, to cut a long story short we worked out that we could afford to stay here for the length of the house sit without working, and instead Tom began his Bumble project of creating some cupboards and storage space, and I embarked upon creating my make up website, something I have put off due to having no time to dedicate to it properly.
And so Miss Mascara was born! I needed to get some photos together so put some 'Models Wanted' signs up around the place and was lucky to get a few responses from some lovely girls who were willing to be models in exchange for some snacks and wine! Overall I was able to get some good photos of a variety of make up looks, as well as doing make up tutorials and a few photos of myself to start me off. I won't go into this in too much detail for fear of losing some of our male readers, so if you are interested check out www.miss-mascara.com and let me know what you think!
Tom on the other hand got stuck into DIY-ing our beloved van and creating a unique space under the bed with a hinge to open it and some cupboards on either side of the van - thus allowing access from the boot entry without clambering over a unit. Very clever of him. Considering neither of us had renovated a van before we got stuck in and made some custom MDF cupboards to fit all our bits and pieces in before painting them with a black gloss to match the rest of the interior. The result was actually quite amazing and we are chuffed to bits with the result, as well as having a kick-ass van compared to the others we have seen!
Upon completion we decided to go on a day out to see if everything worked and get a feel for what it would be like to live in the van again. We went to a place nearby called Cedar Creek Falls, which is a beautiful area with lovely natural waterfalls from the high rocks. As it is winter here the water was too cold to swim in despite having lots of sunshine, so we were happy to climb the rocks and chill out for a bit. Tom climbed to the top of the falls but after my previous flip flop incident I didn't trust them not to slip, so stayed at a safe halfway point! After the falls we drove to Conway Beach nearby and made a cup of tea and had some sandwiches and homemade dips - how very English of us! Deeming the van an ultimate success we drove back to the house and then decided to spend the next week like a 'holiday', and sunbathed by the pool every day with a stack of books and some beer...
One of the things we have enjoyed most about living in our house sit has been the chance to enjoy some outside living and cooking with the BBQ, as well as me being a real domestic and baking some cookies! We bought a beef joint and decided we would have a roast, Aussie style, by cooking the beef in the charcoal BBQ, something Simon had told us was delicious and we were itching to find out. Lighting the BBQ, as always, was more difficult that we realised and after lighting lots of little firelighters and gently coaxing the charcoal bricks for 20 minutes, we were getting nowhere. My patience was slowly running out as the thing just would not light, so Tom decided enough was enough and went to get the firelighting fluid from our van. Now I am no expert on BBQs so was happy enough to let Tom do most of it in a manly way, while I watched from the sidelines. We only had a small amount of liquid left in the bottle, so Tom dripped the lot onto the coals and in seconds the whole thing went up in flames! I jumped back and so did Tom, except Tom was still holding the plastic firelighting bottle, and his hand was on fire. And so were his trousers.
What happened next fell into the, 'this is both serious and funny but I am in hysterics' category. The BBQ was by the pool and up on a raised area, where I was standing, but Tom had been standing on the pool side so on a step below. Therefore the BBQ was between us and I just watched while he flapped his hand around with the lighter fluid bottle still attached and rather dramatically on fire, with his whole trouser leg aflame. All I could do was stand and shout at him, "Babe, babe, jump in the pool!" at the top of my voice over and over again, all the while he ran around everywhere except near the pool. Finally something had to give, and that was Tom's toe. All this running around induced the kind of panic I have never witnessed in anyone before, and eventually Tom slipped over right by the pool, extinguishing his trouser leg as he did so and flinging his whole arm into the water. The whole thing felt like it was an eternity but in reality was probably only 15 seconds. As I made my way around to him I could feel my hysteria bubbling over and instead of being much of a comfort, I just laughed and laughed for ages! The thing was, he was actually really hurt and once I had calmed down we got him inside to see the damage. And damage there was - his hand was horifically burnt and had 4 massive blisters forming, and he had broken another toe! Thankfully nothing else was badly hurt, except perhaps Tom's pride, and so I got on the phone to the Emergency Room and asked for some advice (much as I love my husband a trip to A&E here costs between $300-$500 if you don't have a Medicare Card, which we don't!), certain we would be able to patch him up at home. Luckily for us the chemist in Airlie was still open so we headed down there and got some good advice and awesome painkillers, as well as some water gel and bandages, and I have been playing nurse ever since.
For those of you who are interested, the BBQ stayed alight rather nicely and we still roasted the beef, which turned out to be delicious...3 hours later.
