I don't recall having a sounder or more comfortable night's sleep than I did that night. Something had lulled me into a deep, relaxing sleep and I woke gently, curled up in a tiny ball, snug as a bug in a rug under my covers in my tent.

I yawned and stretched out luxuriously.

And screeched like a banshee.

The thing that had lulled me to sleep in the night had been rain.

Lots and lots of rain.

And, if you recall in the first part of my tale, my tent was missing one of its poles. So the end of the tent was draped over my bedding. Which had thoroughly saturated the end of my bed.

My screeching drew my friend and her BF out of their tent. They leaped to my assistance, rescuing my dripping gear from the tent, in the rain. We stuffed it all into the back seat of the car and I retired to the one dry section remaining in my tent, sitting disconsolately in the tent opening while the others sat in their tent and tried not to laugh at my predicament. I resigned myself to sleeping in wet bedding in the back seat of the car that night. A chiropractic nightmare.

We tried to scrounge together some breakfast, shielding the stove as best we could from the weather before deciding to give it all away and get into the car.

The sky was dark and heavy with clouds and the rain came in stinging waves, pushed by strong winds. The dusty, sheep-shit covered ground had become a quagmire. We could barely see out of the car windows, firstly because of the steam created by three people in a car filled with wet bedding and secondly because of the rain driving against them.

The previous night had also done nothing to sweeten the tempers of the other two and Easter eggs were exchanged with scarcely a word said.

To break the silence, I suggested putting on the radio or a tape, a suggestion greeted with much enthusiasm until we realised it would probably flatten the car battery.

So that was it. Three people, one car, a mound of wet bedding and rain as far as the eye could see.

Not a charming prospect, really.

Made even less charming when my friend suddenly decided that she and her boyfriend had to sort out their entire relationship right there in the front seat.

I don't even think they noticed me getting out of the car.

After the first five minutes, I couldn't possibly get any wetter, so I didn't pay much attention to the rain. My wallet and everything else was still in the car so I was faced with spending the entire day just walking the campsite. In the rain.

How very Hemmingway.

I stood and watched Nintendo junkies feed their addiction for a while and watched the skaters risk life and limb on the slick skate ramp. Most of the market had packed up to get away from the rain and I was left with either befriending the sheep on the other side of the fence or watch the lunatic fringe slide down the mudslide created in what was the natural amphitheatre.

Scrabble anyone?

It was late in the afternoon before I returned to the car. The rain had not abated for a moment and roadies were gamely tuning instruments onstage despite the weather. The ticket had read that the show would go on, rain, hail or shine and I was glad I wasn't the only one feeling pretty miserable.

As I walked to the car, my friend leaped out of the passenger seat. "Where have you been? I was so worried about you!"

I shot her a look that could freeze alcohol. I didn't say a word for fear I'd say something I'd regret later.

"Are you OK?"

"I'm going to get some dinner," I grated, "and then I'm going to watch the bands."

"We'll come with you!"

Oh goodie.

Just what I wanted.

I was cold. I was miserable. I was wet. It was all their fault. And now these two, who seemed to have decided that all was sweetness and light between them again, wanted to keep me company.

Justifiable homicide, your Honour.

The only thing that kept me from strangling them with my bare hands was the sure knowledge that Jeff Martin and the rest of The Tea Party would be onstage in a couple of hours and nothing short of hellfire raining from the skies was going to stop me from running out there and enjoying every delicious minute.

I stalked off to the dinner tents, leaving them scurrying along behind me.

Most of the fans were crammed in the food tents, watching the bands play down the hill, trying to get shelter and still enjoy the show. The stallholders had long since given up trying to shoo them out of the way and now simply worked around the thousands of bodies squeezed together. We managed to get fed by the Hare Krishnas and find a place where we could just see the stage over someone's shoulder and not get rained on. My friend sidled up to me. "Ummm, Tree? Are you sure you want to stay? The weather isn't going to let up..."

The look I gave her was answer enough.

She stayed quiet for the next two sets. Everclear was bombarded with beer cans by the brave souls who were too wet to care about standing in ankle-deep slush, being rained on. The band threatened to leave the stage. The crowd booed. The mood was turning nasty. They finished their set short and disappeared and the roadies for Primus appeared. Primus was scheduled to appear before The Tea Party, the headliners. My friend sidled up to me again. "Look, Tree, if we pack up and head off now, we could be home just after 1am. You could sleep in a nice warm bed tonight, rather than the car."

"Yeah, Tree," chimed in the BF. "We can beat the crowds home if we leave now!"

I counted to ten.

I counted to ten again.

I rounded on the pair of them and fixed them with a steely gaze. "The only reason I came to this miserable festival was to see The Tea Party. I'm not leaving before they play."

"But look at the weather..." my friend whined.

I took a deep breath. I reminded myself that everything I was thinking at that moment was extremely and messily illegal.

"Listen, you two can pack up and go the hell home for all I care. Just dump my gear at my apartment. I'll hitchhike home or something. But get this straight. I am staying here. The weather will clear up. And I will stand out there and I will watch The Tea Party play the best damn gig in the history of music. OK?"

"But why?" She whined again.

Before she could say another word, I screamed, "BECAUSE... I... SAID... SO!"

They blinked. Most of the people around us blinked. I cleared my throat, "Now, if you will excuse me..." and I walked out into the rain to get a good spot in the crowd.

Primus was playing the last songs of their set.

The rain began to abate.

They took their bows to rapturous applause.

The rain stopped entirely.

The roadies came onstage to set everything up.

A small hole appeared in the clouds.

By the time the band walked on, the sky was clear from horizon to horizon, filled with stars and a full moon illuminated the crowd.

I looked pointedly at my friend.

She nodded, wide-eyed. And I proceeded to groove my little heart out to one of the best damn gigs I've ever witnessed.

And the moral to this story? Ignore me at your peril, kids.

Because I said so.

The next morning dawned bright and way too damned early for me. I crawled out of my tent, fired up the stove and made preparations for tea, coffee and hot cross buns. My friend and the BF crawled out of their tent looking dishevelled and somewhat discontented. Neither of them was in the mood to talk, so it was breakfast to the sound of puking festival-goers, squawking birds and baa-ing sheep. We cleaned up and caught a bus into town to wander about and see what was what.

The odd snipe from my friend or her BF alerted me to the fact that something was seriously wrong in paradise. I enjoyed the sunny weather and snooping around shops and strolling along the beach and tried not to pay attention to the bickering. Along with never getting involved in a land war in Asia and never going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, one of the classic blunders is to intervene with an arguing couple while holidaying with them. Sides are picked and everyone loses. I left them to sort themselves out.

Torquay doesn't hold much interest unless you are a surfer or an inveterate collector of nautical memorabilia. So one turn around the main street and we had run out of things to do. None of us wanted to go to the surf carnival (and reveal our complete and utter ignorance about surfing, although I can say 'grommet' fairly convincingly) so it was back onto a bus and back to the festival.

We puttered and pottered, watched skaters, browsed the little tent market that had sprung up and generally mooched until the bands started playing that night. Apart from the odd moron peppering the stage with full beer cans (what a terrible waste of beer), the music was good and the vibe was fantastic.

About 1am, my feet were getting tired and the band about to come on didn't really appeal, so I took my leave and headed back to the tents. On the way, I saw the shower block. Deserted. Utterly deserted.

Now let me give you some background here. We were in the middle of a sheep paddock. The shower block and the toilet block were enormous caravans wheeled in for everyone to use. All 14,000 of us.

Have I mentioned we were in the middle of a sheep paddock? A dusty, dirty, sheep-shit filled sheep paddock? Where you ended up grey with dust from head to foot just walking from one end of the camp to another?

Good.

I just wanted to make that bit clear.

I'm a pretty fastidious person. I don't like going long without a shower. By the end of the first day, the toilets were noisome and your chances at getting any hot water at all in the showers during the day were nil.

It was 1am. Everyone else was grooving along to Spearhead. And the shower block was deserted.

I believe I broke land-speed records hurtling back to my tent, grabbing my gear and bolting back to the showers. Sure enough, there was not a soul to be seen and the hot water tank was full to overflowing. I nearly went berserk with glee. I peeled down to my dusty bare skin, cranked on the hot water and just stood beneath the showerhead, moaning in delight. I lathered up my hair several times, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Bliss. Utter, unadulterated bliss.

After a criminally long period of time, I finally got out, towelled off, dressed and walked back to my tent, grinning like an idiot. I felt sparkly clean again and warm and snug. I just wanted to curl up under the covers in my cosy little tent and sleep like a log.

Which I did.

To be continued...

On Good Friday each year in Victoria, the Association of Surfing Professionals holds the Bells Beach Rip Curl Pro surf carnival at (strangely enough) Bells Beach. Surfers from around the world come to compete for the honour of 'ringing the bell' at Bells. In conjunction with the carnival, a three-day music festival, the Offshore Festival, is held in a sheep paddock (strangely enough) offshore.

A close friend and her boyfriend had invited me to come with them to the 1998 Offshore Festival. Ordinarily, I'm not the 'camp in a paddock for three days and go see bands' kinda girl, but this year, The Tea Party were playing and I was going to be there with bells on. Pun not intended.

The Tea Party is Of The Good.

Jeff Martin is A Sex God.

His voice makes me want to Do Naughty Things.

Camp in a paddock for three days to see them play live? Hell yes! Besides, lots of other neat bands such as The Cruel Sea, The Mavis's, Primus, Everclear, The Avalanches and The Living End were playing as well. I needed a holiday and this would be it. So it began...

Tickets were purchased, camping gear was organised. I was put in charge of the 'kitchen', as I was the only person able to get her hands on a camp stove. I bought a box full of food, the stove and a billy in order to make billy tea. For the not-Aussies out there, billy tea is prepared the following way:

Fill billy (tin with handle and lid) with water and boil over campfire or stove.
Throw in a handful tea leaves for each person plus one for the pot.
Stir with a eucalyptus twig (to add flavour) until black as pitch.
Serve steaming hot in enamelled mugs with plenty of milk and sugar.

My friend's boyfriend (whose name escapes me at this point in time, although I'm tempted to call him 'Bonehead') brought the tents. I don't recall what my friend contributed to the weekend. Certainly nothing tangible.

We piled into the boyfriend's car (I shall refer to him from now on as 'the BF') and drove the couple of hours down the coast to Bells, hung a sharp right and found ourselves in a sheep paddock with approximately 14,000 other people. And not a lot of sheep.

We negotiated the Festival organisers and the sheep shit and found a place to camp. Tents were wrestled out of the car and assembled. It was at this point we discovered that my tent was conveniently missing its second tent pole. "No worries," says I. "She'll be right." It was a glorious day, we were there and The Tea Party was going to play Sunday night. Day one and I was in an expansive mood.

Once the campsite had been set up, we wandered the festival, marvelling at the other campsites, eyeing the beer tent and checking out the food vendors.

You could buy everything from chips to espresso. Best of all, the Hare Krishnas had set up a tent. Two dollars could buy you a plate of brown rice, two vegetable curries, pappadums and fruit pudding for dessert. (Note for the 'Merkins: pudding in Australia is not like pudding in the US. Over here it's a moist cake-like dessert usually baked and served hot with sauce of some description.) Cheap, filling and very, very yummy.

A huge stage had been assembled at the bottom of a long slope, forming a natural amphitheatre. To one side, skate ramps had been set up, along with a Nintendo tent (for those who couldn't bear to be parted from their electronics) and buses ran regularly from the site into Torquay (the nearest town) and Bells for the surf carnival.

It seemed like an ideal set-up for a great long weekend.

To be continued...

Chiropractor

I regularly visit a chiropractor. My lower back has been dodgy for about 10 years now and I have resigned myself to monthly tune-ups to keep myself upright. My current chiro is a delight. Her name is Katie and we have a fine old gossip each session. The fact that I have recommended more people to her practice than any other patient (and we are talking many patients) mitigates my constant forgetfulness regarding appointments.

Each session, I will wander in and she will ask where it hurts. I'll point out the ouchy bits and she makes like Rice Krispies (Snap! Crackle! Pop!) until it is all better. I know that I can point out the oddest symptom and she knows where to poke me. Everything from sleeplessness to period pain. It's fantastic.

The last session I had, I mentioned that my hip had been sore when I slept on my side. She poked, she prodded, she sat me up and laid me down. Eventually, she found a spot, poked it hard, waited until I stopped yowling and asked if it felt better. It felt incredible. I could walk more freely. I had a swing to my step. I asked her what was wrong. She frowned at me like she wasn’t sure how to tell me. "Your hip was out."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"No, really out. Out laterally."

"Laterally?"

"Yeah, like this..." and she tries to move her hip in a way God never intended.

"Remember, I belly dance. I can do astonishing things with my hips."

"No..." Delicate pause. "You would have needed a friend to do this."

"Huh... OH!"

Ooops.

Mother

I know, it's a cheap shot. Everyone bitches about their mothers. I don't bitch much about mine. We're actually pretty good friends. But she has pulled something that takes the cake.

As you all know, I had to move just before a three-week trip to the US. Moving is expensive and stressful. I had to borrow a substantial sum of money from my brother to pay for removalists. Then there was the trip, planned well before the move. It was also expensive, but in a good-but-I’ve-maxed-out-my-Visa-card-big-time-way. Then I had my boy come to stay with me for another three weeks. He has a passion for second hand books. So do I. An expensive passion... I had also promised, in conjunction with my brother, to pay for Mum to fly to Western Australia for a Naval Reunion in October. This was planned before the trip and well before the move.

So the period from July until October has been/is a gigantic financial drain for me.

Mum was an absolute wonder while I was in the US. She came into my new place and helped unpack and tidy the place up so that I wasn’t coming home to a box-strewn disaster area. When I spoke to her on the phone, she told me that she had been sprucing the place up a bit for me.

I love my mum.

When I came home, the windows facing the neighbouring building all had gauzy white curtains and my crappy old couch had been covered with a lovely yellow cotton rug. The place looked gorgeous. I was thrilled.

Right up until the point where she handed me $350 in receipts and told me I could pay her back.

Which was right AFTER the point her dog had come in and clawed the new rug to bits so that it couldn’t possibly be returned.

I was gobsmacked. To put it mildly.

My brother was horrified. He had gone shopping with Mum, helping pick things out for my place, presuming that she was giving them to me as a surprise housewarming present. A very big housewarming present, admittedly, but he had no idea she was going to ask for the money or he would have made her ask me first.

Two years ago, my grandfather (Mum’s father-in-law from her first marriage) passed away. Mum could not afford to go to the funeral so I paid for her ticket. I told her she could pay me back whenever she could get the money together.

It's time for me to call in my debts.