Last Saturday I had promised to stand beside Bill and Terry the policemen, Simon the publican and Chris and Glenda the friendly grocers and help wash cars to raise money for the Imbil scout group.

As I pride myself on living by the saying, “a promise given is a promise delivered”, how bad did I feel when I didn’t turn up and it’s not even that my excuse was a good one?

Let’s play a game. You, the reader, can be the Imbil scout group, I’ll be Chris the grocer delivering Jamie Dunn’s excuse.

“Boys, Jamie’s – ah – gone fishing with his friend Ron.”

Well, how did I go? Not very well I suspect. There was another reason, of course, if I can just add some weight to my no-show.

I had trouble with my Land Rover Defender. Nothing much really, just a clutch and a gear box.

Could that be God paying me back for snubbing the scouts of Imbil?

Romantic movement

Now I know why the Caltex truck stop on the left as you go into Gympie is called the Gold Nugget.

I went to the men’s, or should I say real men’s – it is a truck stop.

There I was pointing Percy as it were, when all of a sudden from inside the cubicle came the sound of a truckie talking to his wife on a mobile phone while he was doing a poo.

It went something like, “Yes, hi darling. I’m just outside of Gympie” – plop.

Now that’s what I call a true romantic.

Make that a doughnut

I had a T-bone steak, salad and chips at the BP Garage Forest Glen.

As I munched on my cow (they are a very big steak) I noticed a tyre mark and hole in the awning outside the restaurant.

I couldn’t help but ask as I left, “How do you get a Pirelli skid mark on the ceiling?”

“Well,” said the lovely lady behind the counter who had originally suggested the steak as the meal of choice, “a learner driver came down the off-ramp and lost a tyre. It bounced through the drive-through, along the footpath, up through the awning, back down into the car park and shot across the street. It certainly surprised the man coming back from the gent’s but not half as much as the pigeon.”

On reflection

I'd like to say a special Hi to the two lovely highway patrolmen who pulled me over on Bli Bli Road, near the dinosaur, outside the palm nursery while I was driving Stella’s car because we all know it’s an offence to drive a vehicle during the day with number plates that won’t reflect at night time because your dopey son has hand-painted them.

Oh, and I still had the brown sticker on from the ninth month.

You know it’s also an offence to drive with the brown sticker for the ninth month still attached.

They were nice about it though and a credit to the force. I have since removed the offending sticker and put new plates on. By the way, thanks for the body search.
A sad sign of the times

A few years ago I was sitting bayside at Tin Can Bay. One naive thrust of my foot forward into the sand saw me impaled on a used syringe.

Who would have thought that the beautiful, sleepy old fishing village of Tin Can would go the way of our larger metropolitan cities?

Nowadays, even on Hervey Bay Esplanade, there are big yellow containers attached to the outside of the public toilet blocks with signs, “please place used syringes in here”, as though it were an everyday occurrence like drinking a diet coke.

It’s all a bit sad, really.