A boy named Mitchell, the Laundromat Blues and Mad as a cut snake!

We’ve been invaded. On arriving and setting up at our new caravan park, a young and gregarious boy around Piper’s age gradually crept closer and closer until he was fully engrossed in our ‘zone’ – his name was Mitchell. Caravan Parks tend to squeeze you in with virtually a metre or two at times between yourself and your neighbour. As such, if you’ve been on the road for sometime you tend to cling to your zone a bit, seemingly wishing to defend it as much as possible from incursion – it’s your space and with such limitations you don’t want to give any of it up. Our little friend Mitchell is at the age where social norms and boundaries have yet to be understood so he tends to venture over into ‘the zone’ willy nilly, occasionally even venturing inside the fortress uninivited – he’s innocent about it and curious but it gives you that nagging tension in your neck and urge to escort him gently back to his parents in the next camp over. The boys have met some other boys at the resort pool and their avidity for such social connection has brought home their isolation over the past few months. For an hour or so, they were in their element running amok capturing Princesses (Piper) and combating baddies to no end. The contrast of their behaviour was actually quite striking once out of the obviously controlled and uninfluenced confines of our small family unit – like small social experiments demonstrating the effects of a variety of other life experiences and propensity for testosterone to exert its rather boisterous tendencies on young boys. I felt like I was watching a documentary on SBS.
While the boys got to work on the day’s schoolwork, Piper and I set off to do the laundry and complete some errands. Aidan seems to be going through chapter books like they’re going out of style. Every new town with a bookstore gets a visit to keep up with his voracity. Cole’s reading is coming along with a recently noted spark of interest and confidence suggesting he’ll actually get into it as well. He hasn’t been as keen on schoolwork as Aidan, but I think the lights will go on and with a bit of concentrated effort (undistracted) he should go well once back into formalized school. I have a feeling he seems to have a propensity to be a bit of a rabble-rouser and will identify with other kids with the same outlook, shunning his work for play. Hopefully the school we’ve enrolled him in in Canada will cater a bit to his whimsical side and keep him on task and learning. Piper surprises us at times, sitting down flipping through some of her and the boys books. She virtually knows all of her nursery rhymes somewhat by heart (with a few 'Piper-isms' added in for effect and ownership). She joined me in our venture to the Laundromat at the local BP Service station. A clean little facility mainly used by visiting workers or travelers such as ourselves in search of a dryer! The weather has continued to be inclement with douses of rain showers negating the effect of short humid dry spells on hanging laundry. Not wishing to play in the parking lot or twiddle my thumbs for the duration of my washing/ drying loads, Piper and I took off to complete some errands. The first go around worked out swimmingly with perfect timing for a freed up dryer. Unfortunately our second mission went on a bit long and when we returned our clothes had been removed from their respective machines by others with nothing better to do but monitor the machines. Accepting our lot we headed out with ne'er an evil comment and went through the invigoration of hanging the semi-dry mass back at the caravan park.

In the arvo we headed out on bikes to the ski/swim beach out past the airport along a very nicely paved cycling track. Not sure why anyone would wish to swim or ski in the area as large crocs are touted to be seen occasionally. The kids played on the jungle gym a good 25 metres from the waters edge. There was actually a tree about 15 metres out with a rope tied to an upper limb which has obviously been used by local kids – looks a bit precarious to us conservative southerners. On the way back to the caravan park we stopped at a local Stone-smith shop to check out his wares. A variety of different silt rocks have been formed in the Kimberleys ranging from 1200 million year old ribbon stone (multi-coloured layered stone) to astronomite (burgundy stone with lighter coloured perfect circles or dots – like a petri-dish with bacteria cultures), zebra (perfectly evenly striped) and okapi stone (multi-coloured even stripes). We’d promised the boys a pendant necklace back in Broome but had forgotten to pick them up so managed to find a couple for them here. At a local café with one of the best arrays of gelato we’ve seen for quite a while, we feasted on some tasty flavours then headed home. There’s a term for crazy people in Australia – often applied to Queenslanders – “mad as a cut snake.” Crossing the street, a Caucasian man with a German-sounding accent was standing in front of the Centrelink office with mirrored windows, gazing at himself while he slapped his abdomen yelling, “Like concrete!” He fit the profile - very bizarre. Back at the van our friend Mitchell was nearly waiting on the doorstep. He was hard to dissuade or get rid of but eventually managed to make it back to his home/van for the night. We had a little movie after dinner and then settled for the evening with dreams of swimming holes, waterfalls and large gorges prancing in our heads.