A Phoney Moment in Freo
7th August, Fremantle & Perth CBD, Australia
When you are trying to sell a van, and you have an advert in the motor section of the weekend paper, it's really handy to have something like a phone for people to contact you on. I do have one, but for some reason it decided, today of all days, on advert publication day, to stop working. But only partially. People on the phone could connect OK, I would be able to answer but they could not hear me. So, after two missed calls I phoned Jason to see if I had any luck calling out (the phone had played up a bit the last time Jase and I spoke, so I thought he might hang on a while instead of hanging up straight away).
"Hello?"
"Hello Jase, it's Ian here, can you hear me OK? I think my phone is playing up and ..."
"Hello? Ian, I dunno if you can hear me but I can't hear you," said Jase.
"Ok, thanks anyway," I replied, somewhat superfluously, given that he couldn't hear anyway, then hung up and cursed the stupid phone for choosing today to break. There was nothing else for it - I would have to get a new phone and soon.
We were in Fremantle, having got there early this morning to check out the car market that takes place on Saturdays. We didn't leave the van there today, given the problems with the phone and also because of the way they run things there - you have to leave the van/car keys, and all relevant paperwork, with the people on site who then do the selling on your behalf. I wasn't too keen on that approach - nobody knows Ethel like we do, and let's be honest, it's not in their interest to sell the van quickly. The less effort they put in to sell it, the more likely they will get another $30 dollars the following week. So, we gave it a miss for now.
I managed to pick up a new phone in a shop in Freo, and immediately phoned Jase back to see if he could hear me OK ("clear as a whistle," he confirmed). We didn't hang about long in Freo - we were only there to recce the car market, and the phone problem was an unexpected extension to our stay. We headed the 20kms back in to the centre of Perth, stopping at the south foreshore to get more photos of Perth's CBD across the Swan River; we also snapped a couple of photos of the Old Mill that sits on Mill Point (well, that's a surprise!).
The old windmill at Mill Point on Perth's south banks.
Later we headed back to the caravan park, just north of the city, for a few hours of rest before our evening's entertainment: a barbecue with Jason and Jess over in Subiaco.
Don't be fooled by the photo - it was Jason (not Jess) who was doing all
the work on the barbie when this photo was taken!
The barbecue was something of a celebration for the couple. Jason has already got permanent residency in Australia, but Jess had not, and Friday (yesterday) was the day that they hoped to find out. When I spoke to Jason yesterday morning, they had not got a final answer, but were told to be optimistic. Between that time and our visiting them this evening, they had got the final anticipated answer from immigration.
Various family members (Jason's) had turned up to congratulate the couple, along with some friends from back home in the UK and other friends from Perth. I had one of those strange conversations with somebody whose face looked very familiar and rightly so. I knew that she was from a place just a few miles down from where I was born in England, and I knew that Helen (for that was her name) knew my older brother, but there was something else I couldn't put my finger on. We started talking about people we knew from back in the days, mostly my brother's friends, but then Helen asked me:
"Do you know Dave Riddell?"
Hang on ... I do, or did. But he had nothing to do with the previous mob of people we had been discussing. So it must be a different person she was thinking of to the one I was.
"Yeah, but he isn't from Bishopstoke," I replied. "He's married to someone I used to work with (Simone), so I don't think it's the Dave that you know."
Except it was. Turns out that this Helen was Simone's best friend and, some 14 years ago, I had bought a watch off Helen when she used to work for Omega (where they got a staff discount). Within the space of a few minutes we'd gone from being vague acquaintances to people with shared friends and lots to talk about. It was a surreal moment, for sure.
We didn't stay at the barbecue late, leaving Jason (and family) and Jess at around 9pm. Most of the other visitors had gone by then, anyway, so we weren't being party poopers. Besides, they had lots to do before they leave Perth on Monday, sleep being one of those things! We said our goodbyes again, and this time we knew it would be the last time we'd see them for a long time. But then these days nobody's ever that far out of contact. While we're travelling and they're travelling, there will always be email, so stay in touch guys - and have a great time up north!