The Big Bull

When you’re little, you don’t appreciate the little things like home cooked food and riding bikes around the clothesline. It’s the big things that get you going. When it came to 'days out' in the small costal town where I grew up, short of going to the beach you were left with only three other half decent places to head. Two nature parks, and one huge-fuck-off-giant Bull.

Today I want to share with you my many memories of Wauchope’s ‘the Big Bull.’ It truly was as ridiculous as it sounds. Even as I research it today, it really astonishes me that the trip to ‘the Big Bull’ every school holidays was a highlight worthy of first week back at school show and tell! First off, this 14metre tall, 22metre long monstrosity wasn’t even in the same town where we lived. You had to drive 40mins west into hick-land. When I say hick-land, I’m talking nothing but farmland and weird people. The town is called Wauchope (pronounced War-Hope.) The town consists of several drunks sharing three pubs and one main street. To give you an idea, the town is home to the train station that no other local community wanted. A roaring national train tears through on the hour every hour and it makes the ground shake. The town is such a shit hole that the station and the thunder line (as I used to call it) added value to local property! The town has three second hand stores, a hardware store and a public pool that I was never allowed to visit due to it being populated by rednecks in mix-matched bathing suits (if they’re wearing bathing suit as all.) So what put this town on the map? What else… an infamous farmer who was caught with his overalls around in ankles, having it off with Betty the cow... and of course the beloved ‘Big Bull.’

As you can see from the picture there isn’t much there. It truly is nothing more than a huge field with a huge bull and cow themed gift shop stuck in the middle of it. You could see it for miles! As you would come up the highway you could see it getting bigger and bigger, with that the excitement would grow and grow.

Entry was $2 and there were three floors within the bull to explore. Each floor contained a different era of farm memorabilia. Farmer Paul, (not the one who had sex with a cow or at least he wasn’t caught) the creator of the big bull was always on hand to answer any questions you may have had. He also drove a tractor around the paddock with a trailer filled with hay attached. All the kid would pile in this trailer and he would take us for a ride around the paddock while giving us a live commentary of what ever he fancied. When I say whatever he fancied, he’d tell us stories about what he watched on TV the night before, how the government was screwing the poor, why Tasmania shouldn’t be associated with Australia etc. It was farmer Paul who taught me what a communist was and how Nam was a waste of time. It was only several years later that I realised he wasn’t refereeing to Nambucca Heads. Farmer Paul even once came to my school to drum up some business and promote his ‘kids get in free this month’ special…. he wasn’t allowed to talk to us but rather just stand next to principle and wave while the principle told us about the special offer.

There were also live milking shows at ‘the Big Bull’ where one lucky person got picked out of the crowd to go up and titillate a lactating mammal. I can also trace back my fear of barnyard animals to ‘the Big Bull.’ There was an animal nursery filled with goats and various other smelly four legged creatures. Determined to get me in the pen with my paper bag of animal feed, mum would climb over and then be chased around by goats and lambs for 10mins, yelling, “Get away… look sweet heart it’s fun. GET AWAY!” It’s rather traumatizing watching a goat try and eat your mother’s jacket as she’s trying to convince you she’s having fun. I never got in the pen with the animals. Instead I would throw my paper bag of feed in the middle of the chicken-bird like things and watch the feathers fly as the goats would come stampeding over.

But while all this sounds like a hoot and fun for all ages, there was only one reason you went to ‘the Big Bull’ if you didn’t have kids or a cow fetish. ‘The big Bull’ had huge pair of (to scale) swinging testicles that squeaked in the wind due to them being so big and the hinge that connected them being so small. My mum wouldn’t let me stand underneath them for fear of castrated bull balls killing me.

But with all good things, ‘the Big Bull’ is no more. I found this article which I think sums up why it was pulled down… and also to prove that this post is not just a load of bollocks.

I've Gone all Mushy Inside (but i kind of like it)

I follow a blog by a lovely lady by the name of Ginny. You can find her here at Praying to Darwin. Give her a read, she keeps me clutching my ribs and I giggle till my little lungs can giggle no more. Put it this way, if you're a smoker, don't smoke while reading her blog. You may hurt yourself.

One of her recent posts, Maybe a Girl's Best friend. Just Not This Girl touched me. As you will read, Ginny’s post isn't about diamonds but rather, it’s about how her hero wouldn’t buy her a big flippin’ ten-ton-tessy necklace but rather give her something with some meaning. Her other half being the REAL Hero she needs.

I understand what she's hootin' on about first hand. While some of you look at your boyfriends and husbands and touch wood you will never see them hurt, I touch wood that I will never see mine hurt again. I don’t want to go into details but a couple of years back Justin took a bullet in the form of a size 10 Nike sneaker… to the head.

When you see your other half in a way that I saw Justin that night you realise that nothing really matters. You know what love really means when you’re rattling off their blood group, what their allergic too and an entire medical history rite down to his last dental check up. He can’t remember any of that night. I don’t think I would want him too, even if he could.

I would rather trade all the diamonds in the world than see him hurt like that again. I would rather us both be poor and just have each other than have the world but have no one to share it with.

So every year when he produces presents for me I always accept them with a huge smile and hug. To be honest, he could be giving me a clump of dirf decorated with dryer lint, little does he know that my big present every year is really just having him by my side and watching his eyes light up as I open my gifts. But please don’t tell him though, his ego is big enough already and I've really got my hear set on a slanket.

How not to talk about sex with a teenager

Now it may not surprise you when I say I don't have the best relationship with my step father. I’m going to hold back from throwing insults and show a little respect. We never shared anything while I was growing up. Complete polar opposites but, there was one night when he put on the dad pants and made my inner girl scream with embarrassment and cringe at the awkwardness. That was the night we were both taken by surprise by an ‘adult scene’ in a movie.

When you're a 13 year old girl, sex scenes are extremely awkward to watch with any member of family. If I was to witness one with my mother now I probably make obscene comments until she blushed or walked out of the room. Back in the day I was quite content to pretend I didn't know what sex was. That was of course until that fateful night.

My mum had gone to bed. It must have been a Friday because I was allowed to stay up and watch the rest of the movie with my step father. Mum was quite liberal and let me watch M15 movies, it was no different from any other movie... or so she thought. As we sat there, the plot thickened. I must admit I don't actually remember the plot or what the movie was called but that’s not important for this story. What’s important is while I was munching on popcorn and sipping herbal tea, (no normal tea after 7pm due to the caffeine. If only she could see me now!) All of a sudden the main female character was taking her clothes off. Hmm, thinking quickly I looked away,
“Wow check out how interesting this piece of popcorn is?”
Yes things got that bad and we stooped to that level to try and avoid what was going on over on the TV.

I looked from my piece of interesting popcorn back to the TV. The main male character was looking at the female character like a lion that hasn't eaten in weeks and has just spied a zebra fresh from the watering hole. AHHHH my down played sexual education was diminishing before me. I knew what they’re doing, my step father knew what they’re doing but did he know that I knew? I guess not.

I squirmed, the step dad squirmed. Not exactly a bonding moment to seal our already fragile relationship! As the female character (with boobies out) mounted the male character in a sexual position that made my Barbie look amateur, my step dad turned to me with a bright red face and said, "she's just comforting him."

Not knowing whether to laugh, cry or run from the room and wash my eyes and ears outs with soap, I was mortified! Here is my step father, on a Friday night, in front of the telly, trying to give me ‘the talk.’ I racked my brains trying to find a witty comment, an excuse to leave the room but I was rendered speechless and frozen. All I could muster was a big fat, “Oh.”

I think he though the look of horror and shock was because I had no idea what was going in the movie. I guess he made the assumption that my mother had neglected to inform about the finer points of baby making. I was more than happy to let him believe that if it meant he wouldn’t make any more comments like, “Comforting him.” Trust me when I say this; that looked far from comfortable! I think ‘Oh’ did the trick though because he didn’t say anything back and he left the room to fill up the already full pop corn bowl. Too little, too late.

Anywhere is... ie, NOT HERE!

I really need to vent. I’m not going to go into details as to why I need to vent but trust me when I say this; if I don’t vent soon, someone and most probably someone who doesn’t deserve it, will become the helpless victim of an obscene amount of verbal abuse.

When my brother was born, my step father’s mother came and stayed with us while mum was in hospital. Before mum went away for the longest 4 days of my life, she bought me an Enya CD and told me to play it every time the evil cow wound me up. Not that I have a problem with controlling my temper, more that my mum knew if I got to breaking point, I was more than capable of slipping a little something in her tea and tying her to a chair for the remainder of her stay.

So today while I stomp my feet, pull my hair, have a cry and all in all, throw my toys out of the cot, I would like to share with you a song that seems to calm me down and take me to a place where nothing really matters. Please enjoy this video of Enya’s Anywhere Is.

Industrial Slip ‘n’ Slide

It’s amazing how you forget things completely until something triggers it. I recently became friends with an old neighbor on Crackbook.

While most of my teenage years were spent on planing how I was going to skip the country, I spared the odd afternoon or 2 for the neighboring hood-rats. Between tearing around the streets on our bikes, tormenting each other with water booms and leaving a trail of destruction through the homes of the folk who were stupid enough to let us in, we also found time to peg a huge blue tarp to my front lawn and create an industrial sized Slip ‘n’ Slide. See the example below for actual size.

The Slip ‘n’ Slide kept us amused for most of the summer holidays one year. It started off tame. It was nothing but 3 kids taking it in turn to go down the tarp with the hose flowing behind us. Needless to say that got boring after the first hour. Phase two involved the resident four year olds, one of which was my brother. After we had convinced Kelton and little Chloe that it was completely safe and we would catch them at the bottom, they too started going down the tarp with smiles on their faces and the wind in their hair. We could convince these two to go down any which way we liked. They loved being included in our game for once so getting them to go down backwards on a body board without holding on was a piece of cake and didn't faze them in the slightest!

Now while this was fun, again it grew boring, so we entered phase 3. Soap yourself up with shampoo first for maximum speed. We three elder children tried it first and for quite some time this was the only entertainment we needed. Even our parents would come out and watch the spectacle of three kids, 2 of which were teenagers, throwing themselves down a hill at full speed covered head to toe in shampoo. Yes, it truly was as ridiculous as it sounds but boy was it fun! If you took a run up you would slide the whole the tarp, hit the grass and keep going. If you hit that tarp too fast, the only thing stopping you at the end of the grass was the gutter and then tarred road.

One afternoon we inevitably started to get tired of covering ourselves in shampoo. We needed a new game. I believe it was Harry who called, “Let’s race Kelton and Chloe!” Placing out bets on which small child would hit the now muddied grass first; we soaped them up and screamed “GO!” No words can describe what happened next. One minute there were smiles and laughter, the next the clouds came over. I don’t remember who won, all I remember is two screaming four year olds and three set of parents giving us the telling off of a life time.

Needless to say the tarp was banished to the garage and that was the end of that game. Bike ride anyone?