SCOTLAND THE BRAVE
Dear Alice,
Wednesday was Monte’s first day at work. As you know he recently qualified as a therapy dog for the Delta Society and has been placed at a local facility for the intellectually disabled once a week. He seemed terribly excited as we passed through the front gates for the first time all washed and brushed with just a hint of cologne… Monte looked pretty good too! About twenty to thirty people were waiting inside, all eager to say hello and share the love… or so we thought. It soon became apparent that most of the patients were not very keen to even have Monte on the other side of the room, let alone by their side. Some were actually quite petrified and were becoming increasingly agitated – this really wasn’t going to plan. Many of them can’t talk and so were manifesting their obvious fear with a variety of quite disconcerting primeval noises. Thankfully Monte wasn’t too concerned with all this excitement, although one girl’s deafening primate-like bursts of screeching did cause him a little concern. Eventually, we arrived at a sixty-three-year-old woman who was sat at a desk writing misspelled words with back to front letters and drawing pictures you’d think had been produced by a three-year-old. Once her pants with an elasticated waist had been adjusted by her carer (they were allegedly too tight), we began to make some real progress. She loved giving him liver treats; I wrote ‘MONTE’ on her notepad and drew a cartoon of him which made her laugh. She stroked his head and things were really going quite well until, for no apparent reason, she just leaned over as if to kiss his head again, but instead vomited milk all over his leg! Such is the wonderful non-judgmental ability dogs possess however, he did no more than quietly licked it all off.
It was with massive trepidation that we headed off to the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday night to attend the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The fact was, it had been raining heavily all day turning the car parks into bogs and even though our seats were valued at $229 each (over a $1000 for the four of us), they were still not under cover and we would therefore be watching the show in ponchos. With 25,000 people in attendance paying a minimum of $129 a ticket, and with the show being broadcast live on Foxtel Main Event, it was never going to be cancelled.
When we arrived at the car park, the rain was actually monsoonal, so we sheltered in the car for a bit hoping it would ease. The event didn’t start until 8.30pm and we thought we’d been pretty smart arriving at 6pm to get a car park place. The plan was to walk up the road to Fox Studios and get something to eat first. However the rain refused to ease and by the time we eventually walked out of the flooded mud bath of a car park and arrived at Fox Studios, we were predictably drenched and quite muddy – at least it was warm and humid. It got much worse though… thousands of others had also had the same idea and every restaurant was full. We had little choice but to go for Subway – a big disappointment, but unbeknown to us, this would turn out to be the highlight of the evening for both boys! People had driven up from Melbourne, down from Queensland and flown here from many other interstate destinations as well. Bus-load after bus-load from every major town in NSW were also piling in and unloading their excited, but slow moving grey brigade cargoes. The average age of the audience was probably about 70 and the distinct lack of children did not escape your brothers’ notice.
The life-size replica of Edinburgh Castle that filled the whole end of the stadium had cost a million dollars to build and looked sensationally lifelike, but even this could not release a single spark of excitement from the boys. I tried to get them to perhaps see the humour of this ‘adventure’ we were on, but it was like trying to light a wet match, literally. Partly due to the adverse weather conditions and partly due to the fact they have zero interest in marching bands, neither boy wanted to go, and short of actually self-harming themselves, did everything they could to be left at home. As we sat huddled under blankets and ponchos wet through to our underwear, it occurred to me that your late grandfather would have actually really enjoyed the evening. I so wished I could have brought him and Grandma instead of them – my father would have revelled in the military precision and sounds these soldiers were belting out. Your brothers however, simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tune in to it at all and were often seen sheltering under their increasingly ripped plastic ponchos to play with their iPod touches.
The show was long and so I decided we would leave 10 minutes before the end to beat the rush. Besides, the wind had got up now and we were all starting to feel a bit cold. The thought of following out 25,000 slow moving pensioners and their walking sticks in the dark was totally worth missing any finale for no matter how good it might have been. This proved a very popular decision; besides, even I was beginning to feel marching bands are perhaps a bit like fireworks… seen one, seen them all. As we skidded and slid precariously out of the flooded car park, I couldn’t help be concerned that this was going to cause absolute pandemonium in about 10 minutes time. The boys were so wet, they took all their clothes off and travelled home in the back of the car naked. I know this sounds a bit weird, but trust me, if I could have done the same thing I certainly would have.
Love from : Dad
