A pelfie and Lindsay's Prozac pickle

What is correct term for a self-shot of five?  A pentie?  A pelfie?  Wrong.  It’s termed an amazing achievement.  

It's amazing Tony finally worked out how to take a pelfie!

     It’s called an amazing achievement because it almost didn’t happen.  Hours earlier I was bursting with the worst maternal rage and tempted to wring Kibbim’s neck.  But I didn't want to end up in the watch house or on the ABC website with the headline, Mother strangles son over school shoe demand.

     The day began with Kibbim demanding I take him to Big W to buy him school shoes.  He has none and school starts on Tuesday morning.  All he had to do was read for half an hour, which he did and then write a recount of his very exciting day yesterday helping his father and grandfather on the farm.  It should have taken ten minutes.  He sat beside me in the office and said he wasn’t writing ‘nothing’.  I reminded him if he wanted school shoes he needed to write the recount and I let the grammar slip go.

     He broke the lead pencil trying to cover the page in graphite.  He stood up and slammed the chair against the desk as he stormed off for the first time. He came back with a new pencil and wrote four illegible lines.  He stormed off.  I called him back lovingly and jotted out a plan to help him.  

     ‘There,’ he said, eyebrows raised, taunting me to flog him.  He had written six lines comprising one sentence with eight thens. One hour and twenty minutes had passed.

     I fantasised about being a mother in the early twentieth century.  I would have grabbed my feather duster and paddled his behind.  I wondered if feather dusters even existed anymore.  At that moment I was prepared to settle the matter with my bare hands.  I remembered what watch houses are like and thought about the ABC headline.  I needed a diversion.

     ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I yelled out.  ‘A family walk.’  Everyone whooped with joy.  I think they (and probably the neighbours) were sick of the stalemate between Kibbim and me.

     We agreed on the circuit around and up and down Mt Baldy.  I packed the food and water for the hour and a half round trip and we were off.  I checked my watch.  Eleven forty.  Not the best time to start a walk in FNQ on a sunny January day, even if it is five degrees Celsius cooler than Cairns.  I hoped the heat would wear Kibby out and he’d forget about school shoes.

     Apart from Seffy complaining about the sun, the heat, the grass, Kibbim, my stupid ideas about family time and then some, we made it to the summit of Mt Baldy after one hour and forty minutes.  We stopped a few times to allow Seffy to catch up and to give water to Gina.  She was hyperventilating in fear from the gunshot at the rifle range directly below Mt Baldy.  Her eyes were like moons and her tongue was swollen and hanging to the side.  By the time we summited, there was no more gun fire and Gina had relaxed.  Even Seffy, knowing the end was nigh, had stopped snapping.

     Lunch was delicious.  Tuna and cream on rice thins with Lindsay Jue Sue’s Prozac pickle, a biting mix of choko, cucumber and capsicum in chilli ginger vinegar.  It is guaranteed to pick you up when you feel wasted (after a long, hot walk with dogs and children) and put a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

     However I discovered Lindsay’s pickle had another medicinal quality I reckon he doesn’t know about.

     When I reached the summit I noticed an obstinate leech on my shin.  

Leech well and truly attached, mouth at the left end.

     I hadn’t thought about leeches otherwise I’d have brought along tea-tree oil with the snake bandages and pain killers.  But I had an idea.  I took a birds eye chilli from Lindsay’s pickle, rubbed it on the leech and marvelled at the speed with which it recoiled.  

     While I ate the remaining pickles I waited for the murderous itch that follows leech removal, something to do with the anti-coagulant the slimy worm injects.  It never came possibly because my skin had been burned by the chilli.

Tony didn’t notice his leech otherwise he’d have been able to use Lindsay’s Leech Lifting Lotion!

     In the car, we all heaved a sigh of joyous relief and the dogs flopped down for a well-earned sleep.  I thanked everyone for a wonderful family walk and my heart swelled with infinite love. I thought I might burst with happiness.  

     As Sutchy pulled out of the car park, Kibby asked, ‘Now can we go to Big W to buy my school shoes?’