Disaster in Derby

Last week we worked at Derby District High School, teaching Year 1 to Year 7. With two of us sharing, the day goes smoothly and the experiencing new schools, teachers and kids is a load of fun. I’m sure people must think we’re mad for working “two for the price of one” but we find it really works for us.

Unfortunately, Christine got crook on Thursday and the relief teacher needed to take the day off. She tried hard to wake up the whole caravan park on Wednesday night with her sick noises but, like me, everyone slept on oblivious to her problems. She was back on deck by Friday but still not in tip-top shape.

On Thursday night we went down to the Boab to catch a VERY LOUD concert from Jon Stevens and Ian Moss. Things wlaunching.jpgere so loud that it ruined Jon Steven’s performance but the sound guy eventually figured things out and Ian Moss really went off. However, it was a very late night by our standards and Friday was a struggle.

Saturday was mud crabbing day. The tides were all wrong and we parked over an hour at Derby’s half-mile long launching ramp waiting for the rising tide to touch the concrete. By the time we got the boat launched, it was getting on for 5 o’clock, giving us less than an hour to catch some crabs before the night started to fall.

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Luckily, that’s all we needed.

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Within half an hour or so, we had 7 plump mud crabs in the boat and were headed back to the ramp. Carol cooked up two of them in a delicious chilli mix while Chris boiled the other five. These went down well with Carol’s home baked bread and we all dined like Kings. The two bears came out to have a look at the mud crabs and this is where things started to go wrong.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we realised that Poppy was missing. Christine was devastated. Rumours abound.

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We heard some disgraceful stories about the Geelong Football Club and unsavoury practices with small bears.

I noticed that the Thorsby animal menagerie looked suspiciously fat. We faced the prospect of travelling with only one bear.

The discovery of a note the next day confirmed our worst fears.

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The Derby Dogs have struck again. We have had to leave Poppy behind nad head to Bidyadanga for another week of work and to formulate a rescue operation.

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