Chapter 16

A Queen Has to Have a Throne

I’ve always loved swinging.  No! Not that type of swinging, get your mind out of the gutter.  The swinging you do on a swing, on a tyre suspended from a tree, on a hammock, on a piece of board suspended from a rope, that type of swinging. Phew.  So one of my prerequisites for a home on acreage was a great big tree swing.

We once fell in love with this quaint little house half way up Tambourine Mountain off Henry Roberts Drive, which went to auction.  It was vacant for most of the time that it was on the market and it had THE BEST tree swing ever!  This swing was a board suspended from a magnificent ancient gum tree.  Nothing unusual in that I guess, but this swing started on the flat, but when you swung you flew out and over the precipice of a bank that made you feel suspended over the biggest gorge ever.  Well at least the first couple of times that you swung on it, it did.  I owned that house in my mind.  I could see me swinging on that swing for the rest of my life and enjoying every minute of it.  I could see my son and his children and their children, etc etc etc enjoying that swing.  Unfortunately so could the granny that beat us out at that auction, who had her grandchildren at the auction and they were SWINGING ON MY SWING!  Retired and more money than us and a builder husband... anyway dont get me started.  We vowed after that experience that we wouldn't go to an auction again.  Soul destroying.  Anywho... 

So, now we have this place and there are two magnificent gum trees.  Majestic, white trunks, big thick limbs... and they are in totally the wrong place for a swing.  One is to the side of the property, surrounded on one side by a bank, the other side a shipping container and the other side our water tank (see picture from last Chapter).  The other gum is over the compost heap and surrounded by weeds, hemmed in by a stand of banana trees and in fact the opposite end of the block not overlooking anything.  None of the other trees are big enough or have those amazing limbs that gum trees do to support my weight!  So we have this lovely property and no tree swing.  Good feeling gone.  You know even with all the palms we have on the property we don’t even have two palm trees that are spaced the right distance apart for a hammock.

So when my birthday was approaching and I noticed all these lovely egg shaped hanging chairs available at all my favourite home decorator stores, I put in my request for one.  Together as a family we went around one weekend and sank our derrières into every ovoid or otherwise hanging chair that we could find.  Some were frightfully expensive, some were frighteningly claustrophobic, some were not quite the size to curl up in, and one was juuuuust right.  I decided upon a chair that was splayed out at the seat, rather than an egg it was more of a scoop.  It was difficult to contain my frustration when I found out that the ones on the floor were already ear marked as SOLD and the next container wasn’t going to come in until late March!  So with gritted teeth we paid the nice lady and set a reminder to check back in six weeks time.

Birthday came and went and while it was lovely and I received loads of gifts I still didn’t have my swinging chair.  Easter was approaching and we had planned to go camping with some friends for an entire luxurious week at Ballina, right on the beach.  We would take our camper (currently for sale $7,500) with massive tarp for shade and shelter and they would take their tent, trailer to carry extra stuff including bar fridge and we would use combined facilities to make meals and chillax in.  Bring on the Easter weather... wet as usual!  

Now just a day before we were due to leave we got the call about the swinging chair.  It was here!  Benny suggested that since I had waited such a long time and we would be away for a whole week and Glen had the trailer and all... maybe we should take it with us!  Yeeeeha!  So while it was still wrapped in its transportation packaging we used all our Tetris playing skills to maneuver it into position around the bits and bobs that were already so neatly stacked in the trailer.

It usually takes us about two hours to set up camp the way we like it after which it is time to crack a beer or wine and let the mellowing out begin.  Well, it was the best chill out time ever swinging in my new chair swing, glass of chardy in hand to the admiring and somewhat jealous looks of other weary campers.  Some stopped to ask about it, comment on it and so it became somewhat of a conversation starter.

Of course I had to fight the kids for it most of the time, but I did get my fair share of time curled up on the cushion immersed in the serenity of suspension.  In fact the gentle rocking must set my creative juices flowing because on that trip, in that very chair, many of the first chapters of this blog were written, as have many since from its current position as Throne of the Deck.