DECEMBER 2018 (2)     PLAYING BIN LADY

Spring and the first part of summer, up here north of the Divide, had been hotter and drier than we were used to. I had been watering the garden daily, virtually since we arrived here. Xmas Day itself had been really hot. The family was definitely looking forward to their annual month long caravan holiday at coastal Narrawong, for which they would be leaving very early on the day after Xmas.

As just about all the extended Bendigo family of daughter’s partner made the annual pilgrimage to the coast, I had been co-opted to go around to their place every few days and water their plants in tubs and any other part of their place that looked like it needed water.

I was somewhat envious of them heading off from baking Bendigo. Had it not been for Couey, we could have taken Bus and joined them – although the area of the caravan park where they have a number of adjoining sites booked, from year to year, is unpowered, and John would not have liked being deprived of his nightly TV. But the lovely caravan park at Narrawong is not pet friendly, so not for us.

On 26/12, I had done my early morning garden water and was having a late breakfast when a phone call came from daughter. They had reached Ararat and stopped to refuel. At that point, they realized that neither of them had the envelope of saved-up cash that was to be their funds for the trip – a couple of thousand dollars. Panic ensued. They knew it hadn’t been in the customary place on the bench when they were checking last minute before departure. Each had assumed the other had it. So, there was the question of where it had gone.  I was asked to go round there and do a money hunt. Fortunately I held a spare key to the house.

So off I went. Did a visual check of the bench and table tops, in case. Nup. Next, I’d been directed to go through the laundry basket, in case it was in a pocket of clothes discarded after their final packup and hitch up of van. No envelopes in the dirty clothes…

Daughter thought the envelope might have been swept up in Xmas present wrapping paper, or in the general rubbish of the pre-Xmas preparation, so I was to check the bins, too.

So out I went, to the area beside the front driveway where the bins were stored. I tackled the recycling bin first, as perhaps the most likely – and certainly the least unpleasant. No joy.

That left the general rubbish and the green recycling bin. Given the prevailing heat wave conditions, and the fact that food remnants, including delights such as prawn shells, had been therein for a few days, less said the better! Sorting through bin contents upended onto a tarp I’d brought from home, in full view of anyone walking or driving past, did earn me some strange looks. I wondered if I actually looked desperate enough to be scavenging in bins!

In plain sight…

Had to text daughter that, despite my best efforts – for which she would owe me, big time – no envelope of cash was found. Perhaps they had packed it somewhere after all?

It remained a mystery for the duration of their holiday and for a couple of weeks after they returned home, late in January. Then partner found the missing envelope and cash – tucked away in a corner of the pantry cupboard. They could only assume it had been put there in a hurry, during the episode of the exploding soft drink, when the bench was awash.

So it all ended well – though it did take quite a while for the memory of those prawn shells to fade…